GA: Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((

Alas!  Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((  Pretty sure it's due to the leek moth.  (Though I poked around in some of the dying/dead "green"s and didn't find anything but I'm guessing they've already left or whatever.)

Even the covered ones, because (a) one of the covers developed a large gaping hole a 4-6ish weeks ago that I never bothered doing anything about, and (b) the other covered area I had removed the cover for a week or twoish a while ago (because I think it too had broken) before deciding to put back the cover.  So I'm pretty sure the leek moth got all up in both of the covered onion beds.

But yeah, basically all onions look awful with thoroughly dead/dying "green"s (more like "brown"s).  And, a surprising amount flopped over / got the crick in the neck which means they won't grow any more, yet they're very small. Harvested some of the worst today.  I mean, there's still a mini harvest as they did bulb up to varying extents, but definitely small small small.  Some others not yet harvested are relatively bigger but still doesn't look like any will grow to nice sizes.

So!  Next year I will grow all onions under proper cover for the whole season.  (Except maybe one foot uncovered as a comparison.)

GA: Spooned all onions

I've never ever "spooned" onions before but learned about it recently (though a random YT video I think) so decided to do that.  Just used my finger to ring around each onion to loose things and try to expose the bulb (most have started to bulb out).

Some of them, the ground is SO hard, like cement, once you get below the few cms of compost.  Next year I definitely want to add chopped straw to the soil when tranplanting, to help have a softer soil.

GA: Planted onion sets & buckwheat

Some of the onion sets are under cover, some aren't.

Started Red Globe onions, and more leeks and more green onions

The New York Early onion germination was a bit spotty, didn't make efficient use of the big tray I put them in, so today I started, in paper towels, some new bulb onions which will go into the same tray to make use of the space.  I went with a new-to-me red onion (Red Globe) so that I'll be able to distinguish the varieties (since they'll all be jumbled together).

The leeks and green onions from round one also weren't as thick as I wanted, so started more of those.

Here we go! Started leeks and onions (New York Early, and random onion seeds collected in 2019 to use as green onions)

Used up all of the rest of the New York Early onion seeds.

GA: White onions -- some are already going mushy in the ground!!

Yikes!  Some, but not all, of the white onions are already going mushy in the ground!  A few of those were lost completely; the others were partly salvageable as the insides were still good.

GA: First onions harvested -- the only "big" (relatively) ones so far?

The first onions I've harvested are from the SW bed's east section, which per my notes should be the New York Early onions that I started from seed (not sets), so that's exciting!  There are some decent sized ones (on the smaller side, but I'm happy with it) -- but the ones left in the bed look much smaller, sadly.  Not sure why I have trouble growing onions, whether from sets or seeds!  (Peppers too!)

The blog says I started the NYE onion seeds January 23rd (round one) and February 2nd (round 2).  Presumably these relatively larger ones that I harvested today are from round one.  So, that's 191 days, yikes!!  Seed stores say 98 days for this variety!!!

GA: Red onions are either very slow to start growing or maybe a bust? Other onions doing well

^^^

GA: Planted Carrots (readme for technique used), beets, rest of the red onions

CARROTS!  After the utter flop in my backyard from the May 4th sowing that yielded TWO seedlings, I changed my method.  Here's what I did:

- The usual breaking up of the soil.

- Raked it flatish.

- Used hand to break up little chunks on the surface.

- Used spacing square tool, used its orange "stick" to mark out 16 holes per square foot.

- Used finger to deepen/widen the holes.  (At first used the dowel, but it compressed the soil too much so I stopped and used finger instead.)

- Sprinkled amendments into each hole:  A mix of ~3 parts mrp, ~2 parts kelp, and ~1 part azomite (zero alfalfa).

- Put some vermiculite into each hole to leave a shorter hole and provide an easy-to-grow-through medium.

- Used corn starch gel method to place a few seeds in each hole.  I really liked this -- with a nice small cut in the bag and a nice firm gel it was easy to control the amount.

- Covered up with more vermiculite.

- COVERED WITH BURLAP (one layer) before watering.  Used bricks/rocks to hold down the burlap.

- After covering with burlap, then watered.  Do not water without the burlap because then soil ends up covering over the vermiculite which ruins the whole thing.  (I did it that way for the first bit at the east end of the bed before realizing it works way better with burlap on top before watering.)

That's it.  I used only one layer of burlap because (a) the forecast is very cloudy and rainy so not much sun to dry things up and (b) I didn't have a lot of burlap on hand.

So here's hoping this works!!!!  A one-and-done for carrot sowing is my goal!

BEETS:  This is another challenge for germination in recent years, so I used almost the same carrow-sowing technique noted above.  The exception is I didn't have the beet seeds in the gel (also didn't pre-soak them because they become annoyingly hard to handle when wet).  For some of them I put a dollop of plain gel and then put the seed on or in the gel; for others I didn't.  But for all I used vermiculate under and over.

And today I put in the rest of the red onions to fill out the east part of the leek bed.

GA: Open! Planted onions, leeks, parsley, celery, forget-me-nots, crimson clover

Day 1 of GA being open!

Sadly the weather this weekend and upcoming week is the pits -- cool and rainy.  But good for the cold-hardies.

So, today, these went in:

- Onions:  First, to the east are the ones from my home-sown seedlings consisting of New York Early, with a few Frontier in there; then the rest to the west are all from sets bought at Ritchies', consisting of (in no particular order) red, large white, normal white, and yellow.  All had some kelp, a few alfalfas, mrp, and az.  Leafs loosely scattered over top.  9 per square foot with a few leftovers tucked in throughout.  Covered right away using the short metal fences and a sheer curtain.

- Leeks:  All are from my home-sown seedlings.  I used the dowel to make nice ~6" deep holes, into which I added alf, kelp, mrp, and az.  Placed the seedlings, then when I watered them in the holes kind of filled up right away.  Leaves loosely scattered over top but then I decided I wanted to give them a few days so brushed most of the leaves to one side.  9 per square foot.  Covered right away using the short metal fences and a sheer curtain.

- Parsley:  ~5 seedlings.

- Celery:  ~6 seedlings.

- Crimson clover:  In the east part of the southmost bed.  Didn't amend the soil at all, just loosely raked it, scattered seeds randomly, raked to gently cover, watered.  More seeds were showing than I wanted, so scattered soil over top for better cover.

Put a few white onion sets in with garlic to fill gaps

In the gaps in the garlic bed, I put a few of the white onion sets bought from Ritchie's.  ~3 or 4 in total.

Started stevia round 2 and New York onions round ~3 or 4

(To fill in gaps.)

Started round 3 New York Early onions -- directly in mix

(To fill in some gaps in round 2.)

Started cauliflower, and round 2 of leeks and green onions

Cauliflower = Early Snowball.  First time really trying cauliflower.

And more leeks and green onions because the green onions had bad germination rate and not enough leeks.

Started round 2 New York Early onions -- directly in mix

I decided it's way too annoying to sprout so many onioni seeds in paper towel and then try to plunk them into mix when they cling to fingers etc.

So for round 2 of New York Early onions, I put them directly from the seed pouch into my mix, in the ~6x6 tray of cells.  Put only one seed in each cell.

Started onion seeds: Frontier, and green

And so it begins!

Started in PT:

•  Frontier onion seeds x 16 (left over from last year -- didn't realize so few seeds were left)
• Green onion seeds x a lot (from 2018 collected seeds)

GA: Onion harvest

Harvested some onions today.  I think they were from the sets, rather than my home seed starts.  Not gonnan lie, they're definitely on the small side!  But they're onions none the less!  I'll use them in upcoming recipes, not likely to be many to put away.

GA: Harvested two onions (bulb)!

They weren't huge, but, they were nice!

GA: Here's what's tulled/"tulled": All of the squash, watermelon, cantalope, potatoes, leeks, cucumbers, most of the onions

I will use "tulle" loosely, to refer to any of the various netting I have, which now includes not only tulle but also shear curtains from the thfit store, and Proteknet from William Dam Seeds (the piece I bought was 14' by 25').

Of course, eventually the squash and cucumbers will need to be untulled -- goodness help me when that terrifying day comes!!!

Trimming onions (new this year)

 This year I'm trimming the onion tops to see if that helps them bulb up at all.  So, once they get two leaves, trimming occasionally.