One Onion, Two Onions, Three Onions, Four

I use a lot of onions in my cooking and meal preparation so plant a big bunch of them each year.  (No, it's still a wee bit quite a bit early to put them in for this season, but it's coming.)

 

I plant both red (Red Comred) and yellow (Stuttgarter Reisen) onions and normally use about the same amount of each variety.  A total of three 4' x 8' raised beds are devoted to growing them every year.  I plant them fairly close to each other, about 8" apart in each direction, which works for me.

 

Keeping our onions over the winter months hasn't been much of a problem as our basement that stays close to a constant 52° seems to be a place where they're happy.

 

Curiously, last year the red ones developed much larger than the yellow ones so I knew there should be more of them left this spring.  I've been noticing some of both varieties were starting to go . . . sprouting big green shoots or developing mushy/rotten spots . . . so it was high time to sort through all the remaining ones.

 

Brought them up from the basement and spread them on a table on the deck.  Gosh, I had more than I thought in those two crates.

 

I went through all of them, checking carefully and these are the ones I relegated to the compost heap.  That leaves me with maybe 5-8 pounds of yellow onions and a heap of reds.  Guess I should lean more heavily on the red ones now.  Wonder what French Onion Soup made with red onions will look like? 

Chickens, Compost and Asparagus

Our chickens seem thrilled to be outside and able to roam their yard and pasture in this good weather.  They're already finding bugs, worms and the first of the green grass.

 

While Mr. Rooster watches his happy flock, several hens gleefully take a communal dust bath. (I'd be gleeful, too, if I hadn't had a bath in months.)

 

Papa Pea is spreading beautiful black compost on the field garden.

 

While he was doing that, I worked on prepping the asparagus patch for the season.  Old dead ferns removed, the first of the early weeds dug out by their roots, compost applied to the top of each ridge and mulch laid down between the rows.  All set for the first little green spears to appear.  Asparagus has many beneficial qualities.  It's loaded with antioxidants that promote detoxification (no wonder some people feel it's a spring tonic) and is great for your gut health.  And we all know good gut health is instrumental in promoting health throughout our whole body.  So bring it on! 

First Day In Garden of 2024

One day this past week I went out into the nearly barren garden and started to do some clean-up.  (Thanks to my daughter for all the pictures.)

 

This was taken from a second story window.  I was able to till up three of the raised beds before the tines of the tiller got bogged down by wet soil.  We had had some rain the night before and we were thankful for every drop of it. 

 

I raked up straw I used for mulch in the pie pumpkin patch last year.  Back to the main mulch pile it went and will be used again.

 

Our little crocuses have started to pop.

 

How do their delicate blossoms survive 

in this cold weather?

 

A bunch of lovely lavender

and white ones.

 

What a welcome sign of spring, even though our temp has been dropping down to freezing at night.

 

A Job Well Done

Yesterday Papa Pea asked our daughter to re-glue a couple of spots on the kitchen floor where the self-stick tiles had come loose.  (Only 23 years on the floor that gets an incredible amount of traffic and they're failing us.  Geesh.)

 

I thought it was interesting to note the particular objects she chose to put pressure on the repaired spots while the glue dried.  What does that say about us?  Hmmm, a vise that isn't fastened to a work bench, bar bells and a couple cases of beer. 

Not Much of a Post . . . But It's Something

Have you noticed one thing leads to another?

 

~ You're dicing onions, and you're reminded your knives desperately need sharpening.

 

~ You take some burger buns out of the freezer and notice those two buns are the last so you need to make more.

 

~ A pencil is dropped on the floor and you spy what looks like two months of debris under the kitchen table.

 

~ You move houseplants off a shelf to dust and realize the soil in the pots resembles the Sahara Desert.

 

~ You fill the kindling basket with the last sticks from the kindling bin which means . . . you need to split more kindling.

 

Well, no wonder The List never gets done!

 

* * * * * * * *

 

I've spent part of the past two days on some clean-up from winter in my garden areas.  It gave me some wonderful fresh air and exercise.  And also the realization that certain muscles in my body evidently haven't been used since putting the garden to bed last fall.

 

I tilled up three of the raised beds to help get the compost spread last fall incorporated thoroughly before planting.

 

Planting?  Ha.  That won't happen around here for quite a while yet.  We've had a couple of days that reached the 50° mark but mostly the days have been in the 40s and going down into the 30s at night.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

About my blog posts lately . . . or lack thereof.  I actually have notes of ideas to write about scattered on my desk, but have been unable to pull them together into any semblance of order.  I took a look a day or so ago at some of my posts from the past and was impressed with the writing.  (Hope I didn't strain anything patting myself on the back.)  But currently, the words won't come.  What's happened?

Perhaps with gardening season soon beginning I'll gain inspiration.  (Come on, inspiration.  Get behind me and . . . inspire!)