Garden journal 2013...Chicken storm disaster, #74

[bj taylor]

really great looking onion harvest! i usually leave mine outside under a big oak tree on a metal mesh patio table. they happily sit out there until i get ready to use them. we had this odd ball rain last week & they're trying to rot on me.

 

[MontyJ]

Nice onions Journey! Mine are getting close. I noticed a few tops laying over. I didn't plant any reds or whites like I normally do. In fact I planted Walla-Walla that I found at Lowes. First time I have ever grown these. I ate one yesterday and it was pretty good. I don't have a basement so I store them in the barn until it starts to freeze, then move them into the house.

 

[journey11]

That's a good question...the variety. I don't really know. The feed store just calls them "red", "yellow" or "white". All I know is that they are long-day onions and they like it here. I've always wondered if I could grow a vidalia onion here?

 

[MontyJ]

The Vidalia is actually a yellow granex onion. They are a short day onion. You can get the seeds and plants (I think Dixondale carries them). If you did grow them out, they wouldn't taste like a true vidalia. It's the soil composition in a certain part of Georgia that gives them their unique sweet flavor. You might get close using a raised bed and keeping the sulphur way down, but the Georgia soil is also clay based, so would be very hard to duplicate.

 

[journey11]

Aww, well. I guess some things are just easier to buy at the grocery store.

 

[digitS']

That kind of success is a reason for admiring the charming little onion set . I mean, after admiring Journey's gardening skills . Excellent Harvest!

One of these days, I'll probably learn that not all yellow onion sets are Stuttgarter. But, whatever they are, some of them have real good storage qualities.

Somewhere on TEG, there is a post about an onion I found about this time of year. I carried some newly dug potatoes down to my basement storage room and there was this onion! Harvested the year before! And, it was just fine cut up and cooked!

I sure couldn't get every onion I take down there to last for 10 months but, doing what Journey does - sorting thru frequently - will mean that I can easily go from late summer harvest to chives .

Steve

 

[journey11]

Yes, isn't that funny how even the most shrunken and sad-looking little onion will still sprout and send up useful green tops.

The way things are going in my garden this year, that may be all I have to eat this winter...onions and taters!

 

[digitS']

Let's see now . . .

There was something about wild-harvested mushrooms from the forest. And, venison . . . on the hoof, in every corner of the property.

Onions and taters. Wouldn't be so bad .

Steve

 

[MontyJ]

Ya know Journey, Steve's right. We share the same weather, were both picking morrels and both have deer galore. I guess if you look at it from his point of view, we have it pretty good!

 

[journey11]

Yeah, we'll never starve! It's not a free meal if I'm fattening them on purpose...