May 29, 2017

 I have noted that the garden is a month or two ahead of last year. This is also true with my alliums. I planted them all at the same time as I do every year but maybe because they actively grew through the winter they have matured early. No clue!

None the less a third to a half of the lower leaves have died on the garlic which indicates they are ready to be dug. And the bulb onions are falling over too. I have noticed more of the white onions have fallen over than the reds.

The garlic has been harvested and is hanging to dry. This allows it to be stored. This is also true with the onions. With this warm weather, the allium harvest should be completed soon.

I hang the alliums on my front porch which has great airflow and is warm, this quickens the drying process. When Deb came home from work she thought it smelled like an Italian restaurant.

It is nice to see it all hanging. Alliums are one of my longest to mature crops. It is unique that it is a one-shot deal that is if you are raising the onions from seeds. There was one year where we had a cold damp winter and I was not being attentive enough, this caused 90% of my seedlings to dampen off. Damp conditions and temperatures in the 50’s are perfect conditions for this to happen. Live and learn. Anyway, I did go ahead and purchase onion plants that year. The white onions were of proper size (less than ¼ inch) but a lot of the reds were ½ inch or larger. The vast majority of the red onions that I purchased bolted before they could form a bulb. They were harvested as green onions.

I have noticed that the red seedlings tend to be bigger than the whites. There were a few that I transplanted in mid-February that I thought could bolt. Maybe because it was such a warm spring but I have not seen any flower heads forming. Soon the crop will be harvested and I can sigh in relief.

In Oregon, I never had any problem with onions. I planted and waited for the tops to fall over and then harvest. It took quite some time with trial and error to find the key to growing onions from seeds in the south. This is true with peas too. Both crops have begun to be quite successful on a regular basis. I am impressed that my pea harvest started the last week of march and is still going. It is almost June?

I have another crop that I hope to figure out the culture on, Irish potatoes. I have found a variety that does develop larger spuds on a regular basis but I would like to have plants that produce 1 to 2 pounds per plant. My average is somewhere around ¾ or less. With 90 feet of spuds, this produces enough for Deb and I to eat through the year. 

I used to dig a trench and plant the spuds. Then back fill the trench as they grow only to get marginal success.

In recent years, I save the small spuds (<1 inch). These are then direct planted in November (the date is determined by how warm the fall has been). Then they come up on their own. There is no need to hill or any of that other fussy stuff that I was not successful at. These come up on their own timing. This method does extend the harvest over a longer time frame. For personal consumption, this works quite well. None the less I would still like to increase the poundage. Ah yes more trial and error.

A thought that I will try next fall is to put an inch or two of compost in each hole. Then wait to see the results.