Summer Solstice: Shorter Garden Days Begin

The first pink poppy of the season opened today  to welcome summer to the garden. It will be followed by many more. The scarlet runner beans are up and will soon be twining up the wire, sporting  red blossoms to tempt  the hummingbirds to come close to the house.

Work to enclose Ed's lilies in cages and netting is ongoing. An occasional glimpse of the Baltimore Oriole reminds us how important this job is to complete.

We finished weeding the onion bed. It's fun to weed in a place where if it isn't an onion out it goes. It's so nice to see the results.  Oops. Yes, we did leave a poppy in the space between the strawberries and the onions. What can I say we're weak.  Our cold wet spring seems to have really favored the onions.
!

You would think that a deep  stone path would not support plant growth, but it does. Here the hollyhocks and rose campion have created a detour for me and my garden cart. Soon this path will be impenetrable.  We could weed them out but we will not.  The hollyhocks are descendants of a giant that grew here.  They deserve a chance to reach record height.

The Early Bird Catches The Walla Wallas

It seems to me that the seed catalogs are coming earlier than they did last year.  I have other things to do now and am not yet ready to sit down and pour over the seed catalogs.  The first few got cast aside to look at later.  After all it's only the 2nd of December.  Usually I start to think about the next gardening season in January.  However when the Dixondale Farms onion catalog arrived, I sat right down to check it out.  "Walla wallas are very limited supply, order early.  First come, first served." fairly jumped off the page at me.  I also noted this might be the last year for Mars.  The seed company will no longer produce this hybrid and will not give up the proprietary information.  Last year we ordered our onions on Jan.8.  It was our first order for the 2009 garden season.

I went downstairs to check our supply of onions.  My plan was to label all the onions so would know which ones kept the best.  The Copras always do well.  The red onions are doing well also, but one of the really great looking braids is marked Red Zepplin.  A partial braid is tagged Mars, but the best looking braid has no tag.  So much for my perfect system.

But information from the catalog helped me make my decision.  After careful consideration I eliminated Mars.  If I love them and then can't get them any more I might be unhappy.  I decided to skip that angst, and order Ringmasters, Copras and Walla Wallas.  A new for 2010 variety, Red Marble Cippolini, caught my eye.  They are dark red, flat, and the red color goes deep into the rings.  I can see those beautiful onion slices now.  I made the call today, more than a month ahead of last year.  What can I say. I want my Walla Wallas.

The weather seems to have normalized somewhat.  It's sunny but chilly today, just warm enough for Ed to take the mower deck off the tractor and replace it with the snow plow.  Now when the snow comes, he will be ready.  I know the garden is ready for a nice blanket of snow, and I guess we are too.

Onion Planting Begins

Yesterday warmed up beautifully and Ed lost no time in getting onion plants in the ground.It's a satisfying feeling to get started on the planting for a new garden year. Copras and Red Zepplins are under the first two cages. The cages are there because we have problems with something, perhaps crows , pulling the new plants out of the ground. Potato onions and shallots are planted between the cages. The next cage will be Walla Walla, Ringmaster and Mars. Bought in a sampler pack, they will be mixed although Ed tries his best to separate the kinds.

I placed flat stone markers to keep track of where things are planted.I write on both side of the stones with permanent marker. The sun tends to fade the lettering, but the downside remains intact. Every year I plan to mark everything we plant in this way. So far so good.

Today looks like another wonderful day to be out there. Time to go!

We had a fabulous time in the garden. It was warm and the sky was blue with just a few wispy white clouds. Looking up we watched a bald eagle soar on the air currents. His wings held flat, he rode the wind using very slight wing movements to change his direction. We watched for a long time and never saw a single flap. Eventually he became a tiny speck in the distance on the other side of the river valley.What a treat!

Now the clouds have rolled in and the temperature is dropping. Rain is beginning to fall. What a fun day in the garden!

Chilling Out

Outside the garden is in a holding pattern. It's chilly and snowing. Here the green grass is still showing, but my friend at just a slightly higher elevation, has snow on the ground. This is not unusual weather for April here. Sometimes we get some serious snow in April or May.




Ed took the opportunity to get the rest of the inside seeds started. My onion plants arrived today. We opened the box, admired the plants and put them aside in the basement to chill out until they can be planted outside.

Onion Plants , Our First Catalog Order

The first catalog order is done. Since we have been pleased with the onions grown last year, we simply repeated the order for this year. The variety Red Zeppelin is pictured above. Red onions that keep are a first for us. Their colorful contribution to winter meals seems to make the meal more pleasant. If there is a downside to this variety, we have yet to discover it.

The copra onions are almost gone. They are a definite favorite. They are so uniform and such a nice size, that when you want a large onion it's just natural to reach for a copra. We used to grow these from seed, but we had such great results with plants ordered directly from Dixondale Farms in Texas that we have made the change. There is a wealth of information on growing onions in their catalog. I'm happy now! I can check ordering the onions off my to do list.