Enduring onions

One day, maybe, we will learn to grow large onions, as large as promised on the packaging for sets we poke into the ground.  That is the extent of my complaints about my onions.  They grow reliably, resist diseases and pests, are edible at different stages, can be harvested with fingertip strength, and have a shelf life (bulbs only) if treated well.

The first stage of bulb curing is a day or two on the ground where they were yanked.  Why?  I have not a clue.  Still, I do this.

The next step is to give them good all around air exposure for about two weeks.  The major soil chunks should be removed at this point, gently.  In the past, I have hung them on the clothesline to cure.  I can't quite achieve all of the recommended conditions - no direct sunlight, good air flow, protection from rain, warm but not too hot - so I choose a couple of them.  Because I was leaving town for several days early in the curing period, I placed them on a wire rack in a shady corner under a narrow awning.  (The photo is indeed of curing garlic bulbs.  Pretend they are onions.)  






After peeling off the flaky outermost skins, this is what we had.  Small shiny yellow onions.  They are in a plastic bag merely for display, and perhaps weighing, purposes.  They must not be left this way.  The onions were stored in a kitchen drawer (short term) and in an open cardboard box in the (semi)cold room in the basement (longer term).











Barry just sliced an onion or two for the salad.  We have four left, in excellent condition, in the middle of January.  I no longer care if our onions are a bit short in the radius.  If they are going to keep like this, I will just plant more sets in the spring.  Problem solved.

More "What's Goin' On"

peas in cages in the back yard

Snow peas have been on the menu for less than a week.  Plantings were staggered by probably 3 or 4 weeks - March 31 in the front yard and twice in April in the back (wish I'd made notes at the time) - and the pods all came out at the same time.  I have seen this with pole beans before; I finally give up on the first planting, poke some more beans into the ground, and watch them all come up at once.  Lesson learned: peas can be sown "as soon as the ground can be worked" (March), but they won't feed us any sooner than if we sow in late April. Any fine weekend in between will do. Strong wind a few days ago knocked over the vines that had grown beyond the tops of their cages. They are still alive and well, but won't stand erect again and are going to get all tangled up in themselves now. Barry has been picking the pods and reports that front yard pods are smaller than backyard pods. Less sun, more wind, shallower soil - I'm glad they are doing so well. Shell peas in cages have blossoms now, those on the fence, sown later do not. They also haven't climbed nearly as high, a difference I am not sure is due to their respective ages. I'm curious to see if the two groups eventually reach the same height.

scarlet runner beans

There are six pole bean structures this year, the most we have ever had.  New poles had to be found.  Though I did anticipate using the stalks of a few tall sunflowers from last year, they were  broken before I had a chance to get them out of the ground.  They grow in the alley, so are vulnerable to misfortune at the whims of deer or other creatures.  I'll try pulling them up before winter this time around.  Meanwhile, I'm trying out some lengths of plastic conduit (used as row cover support last year).  They appear to be acceptable for climbing, but don't contribute to a stable structure.   Anyway, I sowed two structures with scarlet runner, three with Ina's white, and one with rattlesnake beans.  The first two are well underway, winding toward their respective peaks and revealing petal colour in their axillary buds, while the rattlesnakes are slower, just starting to find their poles and having rudimentary buds.  There was a bit of a slug problem in that area.

scarlet runner bud

Bush beans - Maxibel French Filet and Orca - grew up fast and are now looking crowded on opposite sides of the pea fence.  Those were sown in May and and the buds are about to open.  Yesterday I filled an empty spot at the end of the Swiss chard with two rows of each.  I'm pretty sure there is enough time.

garlic from bulbils

garlic from cloves

The garlic patch has three sizes of plants this year.  I haven't a clue what the varieties are (they could all be the same one), but they are different stages that were planted last fall.  The smallest are from bulbils, the seeds of the flowers (or scapes), the medium stalks are from teardrops, the root bulb that grows the first year from a bulbil, and the largest are grown from single cloves.  I pulled up one of the latter recently and wish I hadn't.  It was interesting to see the tiny cloves forming inside the root bulb, but now we won't have that full-sized bulb in August.  The teardrops should produce small bulbs.  The bulbils may even produce small bulbs instead of teardrops.  It depends on the variety.  Surprises await.  Scapes are growing and curling on the two larger groups.  Today I cut a few that had done a full circle and will try them in an omelet tomorrow.  Generally, leaving the scapes on is expected to reduce bulb size, because plant energy is going into making bulbils instead of bulbs.  I will leave a few scapes in place and check whether this is true for my garlic.  Plus, I want some bulbils.

walking onions

Also in the allium group, we have yellow onions, shallots, chives, and walking onions.  Yellow onion sets were poked in the ground between carrots and parsnips in one bed (see the Parsnips post) and much later inserted into the area left unclaimed when some zucchini plants failed.  The later ones are still less than finger height, and may, like the ground cherry, require some protection from encroachment.  Shallot seeds went into the end of a raised bed meant for peas and beans.  The legumes still followed, cutting short both ros of shallots. I'd say only half of the seeds germinated and they are now a few inches tall, thin and delicate, like baby chives.  Onions and legumes are said not to be good companion plants, but we have volunteer peas coming up among the garlic and neither are visibly suffering.  Chives and walking onions carry on beautifully, tough perennials that they are.  The chive flowers have mostly lost their colour and the walking onions have scapes on scapes.  Very interesting formations.

We also have two onions in a container: one was found this spring in last summer's onion patch, the other had begun to sprout out of boredom during a long stay in my father-in-law's refrigerator.  That one has already made a scape, the other is just being.

More to follow.....

A change in the weather

It's the final day of August, a day which happens to be cool, wet and dark, as if summer disappeared literally overnight.  It didn't - warmth and sunshine will be back in a couple of days - but it feels that way.  It would be a good reminder, if I hadn't started thinking along these lines a week ago, that wrap-up time is approaching for much of the annual vegetable garden.  Don't want to leave it all to be done on a couple of blustery October weekends.

The pea vines are mostly brown, yet they still carry living green branches that bear pods and peas.  They aren't as sweet and tender and perfectly shaped as they were in July, but quite edible.  The same goes for beans, especially the rattlesnake pole beans.  After two or three good weeks they seem to go from immature to overdone without passing through an appropriate stage for picking.  So we put up with beans that are a little bulgier than we prefer.  I picked off a couple of shriveled pods from these sad Schweiserreisen plants.  If the seeds germinate, I can pick the rest and put this mess to rest.

Summer squash - zucchini and papaya pear - continue to bear perfect fruit even as their leaves are going yellow (and being perforated by slugs).  It's time to tie a "do not pick" ribbon around a few specimens to ensure we have some seeds for next year.  We grow less enthusiastic about giving away our surplus.  The stem on at least one winter squash has changed colour, which probably indicates that it's done. I could put it away and get the vine chopped up now rather than later.

Onion tops fell over long ago, but as long as they are green I keep hoping the bulbs will continue to grow.  Our onions never get as big as the set package promises.  Leaving them in the ground doesn't seem to hurt them, provided they aren't been set upon by pests.  We have found edible-looking onion bulbs while turning over the garden in the spring.  Garlic tops, conversely, are standing erect and are totally devoid of green.  The whole bed will be dug up when ground dries up a bit.  Some will be replanted, but in a different location.

Great seed-bearing versions of otherwise short plants have arisen and been felled.  Garden cress, pak choy, parsnip and lettuce seeds were collected last weekend.  Radishes are still in the works, if they survive the late summer onslaught of flea beetles.  Some of the Simpson lettuce seeds have been sown with hope that there is still time to grow leaves of a useful size.


Tomatoes are finally ripening - Tigerella, quickly followed by Tribe's Tobique, with San Marzano just starting and Longkeeper stubbornly staying green.  It's no wonder it keeps the longest if it's the last to ripen.  Not a hint of blossom end rot this year.  Is it the frequent watering, the straw mulch, the compost tea, the varieties? Controlled experiments take too long.  We just have to keep doing all of the above.

Potato plants are a bit yellow, a bit holey (slugs again) and very much in the way, having overgrown all pathways adjacent to their bed.  Barry dug up one end of the bed on Sunday, so we can more easily get from one side of the large garden to the other and we now have a large bag of potatoes for eating in the near future.  The tubers seem to keep better in the ground than in the basement, so we'll hold off further excavation for a while yet.  Besides, they might still be growing.

Carrots still have lush green tops and if we're really lucky, chunky little 3-inch roots.  The entire harvest is apt to fit in a bread bag.  We have eaten a few and found they have genuine carrot flavour.  If only they would be a bit more tender (and longer!).  They can be harvested and stored in the fridge as soon as the zucchini and beans clear out of there.  Or, they can stay in the ground until I lose my patience with them for growing so slowly.  (I like the idea of the Slow Food movement, but can't claim to be a disciple.)  Carrots sown under the rattlesnake beans have no doubt died of darkness; those among the white beans live, even if their roots are not substantial.  Since they are near the edge of the garden, they are probably the best candidates to be next year's seed carrots.

The largest of the beets have been picked, a few of them pickled.  It would be nice if the little ones left behind take advantage of the space they have to grow now.  Not entirely counting on it, but it would be nice. So many of the tops have been ravaged by leaf miners, I no longer even bother trying to save the good leaves for eating.  Swiss chard is marginally better in that respect; otherwise I would pull it all now.  Hoping that leaf miners die in the fall while beets and Swiss chard keep going.  Full of wishful thinking.

(Almost) everything else, in brief:
Pears are few and small, but acceptable quality
Raspberries are picking up speed
Red bee balm looks tired but could still attract a hummingbird this week
Grapes are hanging on and ripening, despite massive defoliation by leaf hoppers
Peppers, both sweet and hot, are growing green and shiny
Watermelons haven't grown in weeks (the softball-sized one we ate was very nice, though)
Two parsnip plantings are thriving, two not so good
The dominant hue of the red clover flowers is now brown
Basil has been regrowing nicely following severe cutbacks
We have some ugly little cauliflowers.  I might have to double-dog-dare Barry to eat one.

Summer has three weeks to go, officially.  However, September 1 is like New Year's Day for me.  Back to running, back to Toastmasters and clogging, on to music lessons and longer hours at the office.  Gardening season has to wind down, regardless of the weather.

Progress notes

Today I removed from the garden:

Raspberries - still only a dozen or two per day and still extracted with care due to the bees avidly pollinating our future berries.
Pod peas and shell peas - just a handful all together, but I'm pleased they are still producing at all after a long spell of very warm weather
Scarlet runner beans - four or five only, and they are hard to spot
Rattlesnake beans - a big handful of the most delicious pole beans we've ever tried
Papaya pear squash - two perfect shiny yellow pears that went into the fridge; we ate the previous fridge ones for supper today
Zucchini - four good ones and one dark bulbous specimen that was in an awkward spot to reach.  Gave one to the neighbour.  Glad someone posted on Facebook a link to 100 ways with zucchini (if only I could find it again!)
Garlic - one bulb, because we were down to two cloves.  Digging damaged one of the cloves, so it went into the wok with the squash.
Basil - enough to add flavour to the squash, though most of it should have been picked because it's trying to flower
Spanish onions - five that weren't really ready.  These were dug up a week ago and were hanging out to dry
Swiss chard - enough for supper.  A good deep green vegetable to help me grow some new blood cells.  I'm not crazy about it on it's own - butter and red wine vinegar are a big help.

Not today, but yesterday and Wednesday, we harvested two little red tomatoes, a Tiny Tim and a Tigerella.

These are happy times.