March 10, 2016

Good morning, This week I will be listing chard, kale and spinach. We all so have eggs for $5.00 per doz.

Recently after transplanting my bulb onion plants I found I was shy about 15 feet of bed worth of plants. I suspect I either under seeded or had a lot more mortality than what I thought. For a while I thought I would plant green onions to the rest o f the bed. Ruled this out because I am hoping to try and do a perennial of bed green onions where I cut and then let tops regrow. I am curious as to how long I can do that? For ever or do they just bite it. No idea! Some things you just got to try because growing and selling whole plants for green onions, I just can not meet demand. The cut and re grow might do it.

Anyway back to that incomplete bed. I decided to give sweet onion a go, so I put an order in for plants from Dixondale farms and the sweets are on the way. I have been reluctant to grow them for no other reason than they are very short keepers. Less than three months. To combat this short storage, I will start harvesting them when the bulbs have sized up to a good size. Another one of my reluctance's for growing sweet onion is the size they can achieve which can be up to 5 pounds. This size is nice if you are going to make French onion soup. Not every week. So harvesting them at a pound or less will be my goal.

It does remind me of a time when I was looking for a butternut squash for market sales. I like Heirlooms and so I tried one. Sadly the the squash description was not very complete. I found that the average size of these puppies was over 10 pounds. Just not a good size for market. But I must say it was one of the best tasting butternuts I have ever grown. Since this selection I try to see if a size at harvest is mentioned. This is how I ended up with Ponca butternuts. Most are 1 pound but the upper end is 3 or 4 which is a perfect size for a dinner party or dinner guests.

The other onions that I grow are Texas grano and burgundy red. Both of these max out at a pound, are a bit pungent but are decent keepers. The granos are 3 to 4 months and the burgundy is up to 6.

I have a few hot sauces I make that do call for sweet onions, it will be interesting to see if sweet onions make these hot sauces have a different flavor. The curiosity of it all.

On another note in regards to sprouted seeds growing in cooler soil than ungerminated seed, I am trying to germinate okra seed. For some reason it wants to go moldy before it germinates. I am thinking that I may need to really place the seed in a very warm spot so that they germinate very quickly in order to out pace the mold. Although I do see some of the okra seed starting to germinate. Another method I am trying is to treat them like growing veggie sprouts. This where a jar with a screened lid is used. The seeds are rinsed twice daily until they start to germinate. I am curious to see how cool of soil they will grow in. Besides I am sure there are a lot of okra fans that would love to have some fresh okra instead of pickled. If it does turn cooler this may be all for not.

I do need to be careful on being too early. Last year when I planted my first sweet sets in April, there was an unusually long cool damp spring that lasted into May and June. This adversely affected the first 2 beds. Although these beds did have nematodes in them the uninfected tubers never really sized up like the two beds I started latter (July and August). Of the three plant times the July date really out performed the other two. So my plans are to do one bed in April. Take cuttings from this bed and plant the remaining 3 beds by July. Besides this spring DOES NOT even come close to being like last year.

I am banking on the unseasonable warmth will continue. Ah yes rolling with the punches.

This week I anticipate harvesting chard, kale, spinach, lettuce, beets, turnips. There still is an abundance of butternuts.

Soon to be expectations, I have pea set and hope to be harvesting peas soon. My Asian greens and Chinese cabbage are coming along, maybe within a month? I am seeing the vestiges of blooms on the summer squash, most likely be harvesting in April along with beans. Spring planting is getting close to being completed. I so hope Mother Nature does not through any curve balls. Couldn't do this without fabric!!!