Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:


what type(s) did you plant? for down
there i don't think you're super late...
Inchelium red

definitely not too late. can plant those
into January in the south (from what i'm
reading ).


bogged things down for a while. I finally found a full-flavored,
unsweet, short day "cooking" onion that drew positive comment from "the
cook". This is the first season that I've grown them for real.

what are these?
Red creole

i hope they both go well for you.

i spent a fair amount of time today peeling
garlic. smells like heaven in here. have a
few hundred more cloves to go, will get them
done in the morning and figure out some recipes
to try and then make a library and store run
now that the post TG shopping rush is lightened.


songbird

songbird wrote:

i spent a fair amount of time today peeling
garlic. smells like heaven in here. have a
few hundred more cloves to go, will get them
done in the morning and figure out some recipes
to try and then make a library and store run
now that the post TG shopping rush is lightened.


songbird

I take it that you just harvested your garlic, I have just done the same as
here it grows through winter and spring. How is it that you grow yours in
summer/autumn?

David

David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:

i spent a fair amount of time today peeling
garlic. smells like heaven in here. have a
few hundred more cloves to go, will get them
done in the morning and figure out some recipes
to try and then make a library and store run
now that the post TG shopping rush is lightened.

I take it that you just harvested your garlic, I have just done the same as
here it grows through winter and spring. How is it that you grow yours in
summer/autumn?

it is late fall here. soon it will be snow
and ice season.

this is a moderate heat hardneck garlic i
lifted mid-summer, well past prime curing
and storage time. it has sat around in a box
in the closet gradually being used up, but
because it is not good storage quality it will
not last through the winter. so i'm peeling
it and going to be doing something with it
(including eating it as i'm peeling ).

leaving it in the ground longer changed
storage length, but the peeling is easier (the
skins split when dry, cured and aged). i had
a few heads of garlic set aside that i'd pulled
earlier (at the right time) and the comparison
is pretty interesting.


songbird

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

definitely not too late. can plant those
into January in the south (from what i'm
reading ).

What are you reading? I've read and heard so much conflicting
"information" about garlic-growing that I'm willing to pick a source
that says what I want to read/hear and stick with it! ;-)

haha, googled inchelium red garlic and read
through a bunch of descriptions. unfortunately
the history in my browser gets clobbered if i
open separate windows to pull up a site, so i
can't give you the exact reference until i get
back on-line and look through the search
results again.


Last year, I
put my small sample of seed garlic in the fridge. This year, I put half
in the fridge. I don't know whether that's cold enough or for long
enough or even whether this kind of garlic needs to be cold. I don't
know why; I don't expect to do it enough times to spot a trend. Next
year, I'll save some for planting around Christmas.

as i've never gardened "down south" i can't
say much from direct experience, but hey, it's
something to talk about. it's given me a
good reason to read up on nematodes and more
soil stuff, good things for the cold season
here.


Of course the
results, when compared with fall-planted, will be as meaningless but it
gives me something to natter about.

see! you're already aboard that train.
(listening to Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison Blues,
sorry it was the first image that came to
mind ).

it's not meaningless as anectdotal evidence,
but to be more meaningful a few years repeated
is better.

as it seems pretty easy to grow a lot of
extra planting cloves the trouble with doing
extensive timing tests would be in having the
space and keeping track of what is planted
where.

you said something about putting two raised
beds back into production?


At any rate, December works for
short-day onion sets and potatoes. The aim is to be able to harvest
onions and garlic early before (what used to be) the rainy season and
potatoes before the hot season.

ah, ok, well i sure hope it works out well for
you.

i don't quite understand the short day
onion meaning as if you are down south you
don't really have short days?


songbird

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

see! you're already aboard that train.
(listening to Johnny Cash Fulsom Prison Blues,
sorry it was the first image that came to
mind ).

Calls to mind an occasional exercise I set for myself: See how many
George Jones records I can listen to before beginning to drink whisky.

i'd need whisky before...


....
you said something about putting two raised
beds back into production?

Yes; they now host collards, "English" peas, and mustard greens. I
have plans to move both of them when the things in them finish up.
That'll be spring, I guess. The peas are blooming; the collards are
edible size; they and the mustards could be there until February or
early March, when fall-planted stuff can be expected to bolt.

that could be a fun job.


snip

i don't quite understand the short day
onion meaning as if you are down south you
don't really have short days?

During the spring and summer months, in the Northern hemisphere,
the number of hours of daylight increases with distance from the
equator. Ever hear of "the midnight sun"? So-called "long day" onions, a
group which includes most of the flavorful "cooking" onions, don't make
bulbs this far south.

yes, i'm familiar with the fact that days get
longer in the summer. i miss them already as it
seems i just got going on projects when the day
would be getting dark already.


For green onions, I plant off-the-rack white
onions and re-plant grocery store green onions. They complete their life
cycles, they just don't make bulbs.

ok, so basically, they are the opposite of
long day for the southerners, but can they
be grown in the north too? that is what i'm
confused about, if they only would grow in
the south then i'd need a long day version
of the red creole onion or if i planted the
red creole early then would they bulb out
when the day length suited them and then stop?

we've only done the big yellow sweet onions
here so far, next year i'm adding green onions
and trying to grow some of the big yellow onions
from OP seeds.


songbird

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:
Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:
snip
you said something about putting two raised
beds back into production?

Yes; they now host collards, "English" peas, and mustard greens. I
have plans to move both of them when the things in them finish up.
That'll be spring, I guess. The peas are blooming; the collards are
edible size; they and the mustards could be there until February or
early March, when fall-planted stuff can be expected to bolt.

that could be a fun job.

Could be. I'm already trying to rationalize not digging the new
location. I know better, though, because the root tax further down the
road would be formidable.

can you get by with putting a spade down
the edge or do you have to go deeper than a
single spade length?


snip

yes, i'm familiar with the fact that days get
longer in the summer. i miss them already as it
seems i just got going on projects when the day
would be getting dark already.

No that's not what I meant. I meant that in summer on any given
date there are more hours of daylight it your north latitude than down
here.

right, because of the tilt.


For green onions, I plant off-the-rack white
onions and re-plant grocery store green onions. They complete their life
cycles, they just don't make bulbs.

ok, so basically, they are the opposite of
long day for the southerners, but can they
be grown in the north too? that is what i'm
confused about, if they only would grow in
the south then i'd need a long day version
of the red creole onion or if i planted the
red creole early then would they bulb out
when the day length suited them and then stop?

I have no clue whether short day onions work at long day latitudes.
Try it. I see the need for more reading....

haha, been reading a lot lately. finished five
books in the last week and then three yesterday
and today on top of three magazines. good to keep
me out of trouble. unfortunately the one book touted
as an organic gardening book was more like a fluff
piece hiding between two covers -- half a page on
diseases? sad.

the other gardening book was more complete
(Tauton's or Taunton's was a word in the title
-- i already took it back) and much better.


we've only done the big yellow sweet onions
here so far, next year i'm adding green onions
and trying to grow some of the big yellow onions
from OP seeds.

Most of the home garden onions in the gulf states are those big
sweet onions and so-called "Spanish" and "Bermuda" onions. Not my cup of
tea.

too wimpy?


songbird

Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

can you get by with putting a spade down
the edge or do you have to go deeper than a
single spade length?

Hope so, except for following individual tree roots. Gonna rip some
metal roofing for sides/ends, add stuff all winter and move at least the
top six inches of dirt from the existing bed(s), when the stuff in them
now is done. No biggie: They're only 3'x8'. Two tree falls within the
past four years changed the hours of sunlight to my advantage. I now
have space for three beds that would (shalll) receive hours of sunlight
while the existing two languish in the shade of an evergreen magnolia
for the first few hours of the day in fall/winter. The second tree broke
off last spring so this is the first winter with it gone.

that should be a welcome change.

are you going to abandon the old patches
and put them back to lawn or keep using
them for more shade tolerant plants?


too wimpy?

Basically. Not good. Must pique the nose when eaten with, say,
liverwurst or out-of-hand.

heh. have you ever had a peanut butter
and onion sandwich (some add mayo or miracle
whip)?


songbird

On 12/02/11 12:37 PM, sometime in the recent past songbird posted this:
Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

can you get by with putting a spade down
the edge or do you have to go deeper than a
single spade length?

Hope so, except for following individual tree roots. Gonna rip some
metal roofing for sides/ends, add stuff all winter and move at least the
top six inches of dirt from the existing bed(s), when the stuff in them
now is done. No biggie: They're only 3'x8'. Two tree falls within the
past four years changed the hours of sunlight to my advantage. I now
have space for three beds that would (shalll) receive hours of sunlight
while the existing two languish in the shade of an evergreen magnolia
for the first few hours of the day in fall/winter. The second tree broke
off last spring so this is the first winter with it gone.

that should be a welcome change.

are you going to abandon the old patches
and put them back to lawn or keep using
them for more shade tolerant plants?


too wimpy?

Basically. Not good. Must pique the nose when eaten with, say,
liverwurst or out-of-hand.

heh. have you ever had a peanut butter
and onion sandwich (some add mayo or miracle
PB & Mayo is one of my favorite go-to sandwiches yum, really!
whip)?


songbird


--
Wilson 44.69, -67.3