Sunday, April 13, 2014

Onions Planted

Well I wanted to finish those onions. I didn't check to see if the bed was finally thawed. I just planted them. Today will almost get to 70F and tomorrow in the mid 70s so if it isn't thawed it ought to be by the end of Monday. I planted one flat a couple of days ago and had one flat left. These are Redwing and Ailsa Craig. You can see the red in the stems of the onions. Well at least in the front onions. The ones farther back are the yellow AC onions. Redwing is a keeper and AC is a large sweet onion that doesn't store well. It can keep for about two months.

It rained a little on me while I was planting. The ground wasn't muddy though as yesterday was warm and sunny. I left a one foot strip at the end by the fence. I'm going to plant lettuce there later in the year. It will get morning sun, but the fence will protect it from the afternoon sun.

I put in the supports for the netting, but haven't put the netting in yet. It was wet and I didn't want to get my bolt muddy. I'll wait until it drys. I don't need it in yet anyway. The protection is for the onion maggots. Typically the height of the spring flight is about the time the lilacs bloom. Or at 700 GDD base 40F. If you have never heard of the GDD I talk a little about it here and here. But the height of the spring flight is not the same as when the insects first come out. Something I learned the painful way with the squash vine borer. And that can easily be half the GDD for onion maggots. Right now we are at 207 base 40F. I know because I use my weather station and a spreadsheet to do the calculations. So I'll make sure to have that netting up soon.

3 comments:

  1. I'm really grateful that onion maggots and squash vine borers aren't a problem here, it seems that they are serious pests in your garden. Aphids are the biggest problem in my garden, they seem to suck on everything and there's nothing that will keep them off. Oh, I forgot the birds, they peck at nearly everything, but netting and mesh works well to protect the plants.

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  2. I found out about GDD last year & used it for my summer squash when deciding how long to keep the netting on - it worked & I didn't get any borers like I did the previous year. But then came powdery mildew and my plants were kaputt anyway - sigh...

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  3. That's a lot of onions! Maybe one day I'll be able to grow a decent sized one.

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