What did you do in the garden today?

[vall]

Currently on the FL panhandle. 5-6 hours till I reach my new home in E Central FL today. Managed not to encounter any severe weather on the way. We stayed near Canton TX to visit First Monday and that night Dallas got a big storm apparently, but being a bit south we were fine.

@igorsMistress do you know about https://www.facebook.com/AZRFG/ ? I was part of a chapter in California. They are a great resource for fruit trees.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. It started raining yesterday evening and is pretty much finished now. Waiting for things to dry up. It looks like my chard and curly endive are starting to break through the soil. I’m going to see if I can pick up some lettuce starts at the greenhouse near me. I have a bunch of white tulips starting to bloom. So pretty. DD got fed up with the manager at her community garden bullying her she quit and found an amazing garden space in another town close by. She went from a tiny 40 square foot space to 750 square feet to garden in. She made her garden plan last night and has already ordered a bunch of stuff to plant. It’s really nice to see her get into gardening. She’s happy she can grow flowers as well as vegetables. I’m hoping the weather dries out in a few days, the lawn really needs mowing. Ugh! There’s also a few patches of dandelions begging me to dig them up. Lol!

The Meyer lemon is blooming. My Frittilaria, it gets bigger every year. And two tiny mandarin oranges developing.

 

[638858]

Currently on the FL panhandle. 5-6 hours till I reach my new home in E Central FL today. Managed not to encounter any severe weather on the way. We stayed near Canton TX to visit First Monday and that night Dallas got a big storm apparently, but being a bit south we were fine.

@igorsMistress do you know about https://www.facebook.com/AZRFG/ ? I was part of a chapter in California. They are a great resource for fruit trees.

Canton is 15 minutes south of me.. if you ever make it back I can tell you where the best deals are to be had.. lol it’s so big it would take all 4 days to see half of it.. safe travels to y’all..

 

[Sally PB]

Good to know! Thank u!
Can u just cut em anytime or do ya need to wait til u pull up the onion?
Didn't wanna risk killing em like some of my squash by pinching the leaves!

Snip onion leaves very sparingly. Each of those leaves corresponds to a "layer" of the onion, as an onion is just specialized leaves. Taking off some of the leaf means that the leaf below ground won't get fed as much.

Gonna put in a plug for Egyptian Walking Onions here...

EWOs grow green onions, tiny pearl onions, and shallot onions. I can have alllllllll the green onions I want, right now, snipping a leaf or two from each clump. When I need "regular" onions, I'll dig up half a clump, here and there. The tiny pearl onions are good for a stir fry, or a in a salad, or as pickled onions, if you make those.

Here are some pictures, with more info.

This is part of my EWO bed, in its 3rd year, last fall. See all the green onions? All I need/can use.

Here are some that I dug up. No, not a big onion down there, by any means; as I said, more of a shallot type. The brown stalks are what grow the "topsets." The topsets are little onions, about the size of my thumbnail. There will be 4-10 at the top of one of the stalks, and it'll get so heavy that it falls over to the ground, and they will root and start a new plant, "walking" its way across the ground. Hence the "walking" part of the name. No idea where the Egyptian part comes from.

I bought a pound of the topsets three years ago last fall. I now have a bed of EWOs 3x15(?) feet.

They come back every year, and spread and fill in. That's why I dig a half a large clump, so I don't kill off that particular bunch. I just dig where they need to thin out.

Fair warning... they will spread and take over their area. Some of mine have started a clump in the walkway. When I need onions, I'll dig those up first.

If you're interested in growing some, let me know. I've sent bunches of topsets to several people here to start their own colony, and I'd be glad to send you some too. It won't be until late summer/early fall, so you have plenty of time to think about it.

 

[638858]

Well I dumped an inch and a quarter out of the rain gauge just now.. after 3/4 inch night before last.. that’s a good amount of skywater, we need the rain bad.. drought conditions and we’ve had months of fire dangers here.. luckily no fires in my area..

 

[Sally PB]

@FlintMcCollough, glad to hear you're getting your much needed rain!

 

[TJAnonymous]

We had 2 1/4" of rain last night. And I looked back through the registered totals, we've had 14" since the beginning of March. Supposed to get another 2" by the end of the week! I'm leaving home for a week this Friday and am trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to get the rest of my plants in the ground before Friday with all this rain??????

On another note, I had a first time mama hen who took her 4 babies outside for the first time yesterday. I remembered around midnight that I forgot to check on her at dusk to make sure she managed to get them all back inside her brooder pen. I knew we were going to have some wicked storms last night and I didn't want them to be caught outside overnight so I got out of bed and trudged outside to check on her. Luckily, she *did* have them all safely tucked away in her brooder pen but as I was checking around outside, I heard this weird squabbling noise coming from the trees. Do squirrels fight at night??? DH had come outside to see why I went outside and heard it too. He thought maybe it was squirrels or a coon. In the 2 yrs we've lived here, we've never had a coon come around our property. Naturally I am concerned for my chickens because I have several who are nesting inside the goat house (including the mama I mentioned above) and the automatic door to my chicken coop has stopped working so it is currently just propped open. So basically all of my chickens are exposed. The only saving grace I have is that we have netting over the top of the run which is INCREDIBLY easy to get tangled in. If a coon or a possum tried to climb over the fence, the chances are they would get stuck in the netting. Anyway, a little nervous about leaving for a week and not knowing what that sound was all about.

 

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

Snip onion leaves very sparingly. Each of those leaves corresponds to a "layer" of the onion, as an onion is just specialized leaves. Taking off some of the leaf means that the leaf below ground won't get fed as much.

Gonna put in a plug for Egyptian Walking Onions here...

EWOs grow green onions, tiny pearl onions, and shallot onions. I can have alllllllll the green onions I want, right now, snipping a leaf or two from each clump. When I need "regular" onions, I'll dig up half a clump, here and there. The tiny pearl onions are good for a stir fry, or a in a salad, or as pickled onions, if you make those.

Here are some pictures, with more info.
View attachment 3090507
This is part of my EWO bed, in its 3rd year, last fall. See all the green onions? All I need/can use.
View attachment 3090511
Here are some that I dug up. No, not a big onion down there, by any means; as I said, more of a shallot type. The brown stalks are what grow the "topsets." The topsets are little onions, about the size of my thumbnail. There will be 4-10 at the top of one of the stalks, and it'll get so heavy that it falls over to the ground, and they will root and start a new plant, "walking" its way across the ground. Hence the "walking" part of the name. No idea where the Egyptian part comes from.

I bought a pound of the topsets three years ago last fall. I now have a bed of EWOs 3x15(?) feet.

They come back every year, and spread and fill in. That's why I dig a half a large clump, so I don't kill off that particular bunch. I just dig where they need to thin out.

Fair warning... they will spread and take over their area. Some of mine have started a clump in the walkway. When I need onions, I'll dig those up first.

If you're interested in growing some, let me know. I've sent bunches of topsets to several people here to start their own colony, and I'd be glad to send you some too. It won't be until late summer/early fall, so you have plenty of time to think about it.

We've never had a problem with wild onions growing til now...and it can't be from me growing em cuz this is my first time. But they are everywhere! Are they OK to eat? Or best not to?

 

[638858]

@FlintMcCollough, glad to hear you're getting your much needed rain!

Thank ya mam...

 

[638858]

We had 2 1/4" of rain last night. And I looked back through the registered totals, we've had 14" since the beginning of March. Supposed to get another 2" by the end of the week! I'm leaving home for a week this Friday and am trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to get the rest of my plants in the ground before Friday with all this rain??????

On another note, I had a first time mama hen who took her 4 babies outside for the first time yesterday. I remembered around midnight that I forgot to check on her at dusk to make sure she managed to get them all back inside her brooder pen. I knew we were going to have some wicked storms last night and I didn't want them to be caught outside overnight so I got out of bed and trudged outside to check on her. Luckily, she *did* have them all safely tucked away in her brooder pen but as I was checking around outside, I heard this weird squabbling noise coming from the trees. Do squirrels fight at night??? DH had come outside to see why I went outside and heard it too. He thought maybe it was squirrels or a coon. In the 2 yrs we've lived here, we've never had a coon come around our property. Naturally I am concerned for my chickens because I have several who are nesting inside the goat house (including the mama I mentioned above) and the automatic door to my chicken coop has stopped working so it is currently just propped open. So basically all of my chickens are exposed. The only saving grace I have is that we have netting over the top of the run which is INCREDIBLY easy to get tangled in. If a coon or a possum tried to climb over the fence, the chances are they would get stuck in the netting. Anyway, a little nervous about leaving for a week and not knowing what that sound was all about.

Squirrels are not active at night.. was it possibly hogs? It’s spring breeding season and the young boars fight each other and the big boars are really fighting for breeding rights..