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Comment by Joan Denoo on September 16, 2012 at 9:30pm

Sentient, I would love one potato onion and give it a try. I usually start with one of something and see if I can get going. 

Egyptian onions, I have lots. If anyone wants any, just say the word. More than happy to share. 

Thanks for all the great information and referrals to articles. 

For mulch, I prefer pine needles to leaves because of the packing down and molding of leaves. But then, I live in pine country and have lots. 

I also keep mulch away from trees because of the mice problem. I've lost some really nice trees because I mulch very heavily, too much so, too close, it seems. 

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 16, 2012 at 7:01pm

Weekly (?) bowl of fruit.  Hardy Chicago Fig.  Supposedly named because the trees survive in Chicago.  

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 16, 2012 at 11:53am

Oh - Joan, I like the flavor of the potoato onions.  Mistakenly stated "white" but they are really "yellow".  Some info here.  Also an article here.  Also wikipedia.  The starts are expensive which is why I've been saving my own.  My grandmother's sister used to grow them in Illinois.  They usually increase about 6-fold per year.  Egyptian walking onions have a much faster increase.  They are much more pungent.  

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I should be able to send starts of the egyptian onions if anyone wants some.  I usually have lots around the yard, can look.  Might be able to send a few potato onions, I have a few left unplanted.

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 16, 2012 at 11:39am

Fall tree care here.

Relevance is different in different places.  In my area, it's still into the 80s and even 90s this week.  

For newly planted trees, I think they should get water every 2 or 3 days, depending on the temperature.  At least, that's what I'm doing.  I had hoped the rains would start....  My memory is faulty so maybe it's always Oct before they start.  For established trees, the references recommend against water unless they are under drought duress, and no fertilizer, due to increased sensitivity of new growth to freezing.  Mulch is good, but they recommend a donut-hole against the trunk to avoid bark damage from burrowing rodents and mold.  Around here most people do not use a donut hole, so who knows.

 

Does anyone have a favorite tree?  For me, it's Ginkgo biloba, for appearance, personal connection and sentiment, fossil record, incredible age of the lineage.  I like others so much, can't come up with a second favorite.  Pic is from wikimedia commons, the trees here are still green and the "fruits" are hard and green.  I plan to collect a bag of them this year from the couple of public location female Gingko bilobas that I know about in my area, for planting, sharing, and maybe to try to roast some.  Never tried roasting them before.

 

 

Comment by Joan Denoo on September 15, 2012 at 11:42pm

Idaho Spud, I was really intrigued by that table compost. It wouldn't hold even my kitchen waste because we eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. I have two garden bins and a huge pile that is about 15 feet long and 2 feet tall. All my garden stuff goes in there. I lay cut flowers on top so the birds have access to flower seeds through the winter. Every year or so, I scratch out part of it, screen it, and put it in my garden beds. Great compost and billions and billions of worms (I exaggerate). 

I just finished emptying and sieving my two compost bins and piled the worm castings around plants I want to give an extra zip. I won't spread the piles until after the ground freezes. There are lots of broken egg shells, and everything else is worm castings. Truly black gold. It took about 3 or 4 days per pin to empty, but it is worth the sweat and sore muscles. 

I don't deadhead after Labor Day because I want the birds to have seeds for winter. A very large bed of phlox will last a month or so and birds swarm in there up until Thanksgiving. I don't cut back my roses until the ground gets its first frost, then I deadhead and mulch. 

I deadhead Monarda along the edges of the beds leaving seed heads down the center of the beds for birds. I am getting a second blossoming of Monarda where I dead headed about a month ago. 

The kind of gardening I do is not suitable for people who work full time and have families to consider. My dear neighbor has two elementary age children and with sports and extra school activities, they barely have time to tend to a tomato plant. They come over frequently and enjoy eating right out of my garden.  The sugar peas were so good, right off the vine ... alas, only a few peas appear infrequently now. Vines turn brown, the pea season ends. 

Comment by Joan Denoo on September 15, 2012 at 11:22pm

Sentient,I like your idea of planting from previously harvested garlic. I planted some in too wet soil this year and they turned out mushy. Dry soil late in the season resulted in better garlic quality. I do fertilize heavily with high nitrogen fertilizer. None of my head are nearly as large as your. I'll plant in tubs this month and get better control over water and keep track of varieties this time. A good source of information is :

The Egyptian Walking Onion

from a grower in Garfield, WA, just south of Spokane. She describes how to use them in cooking. 

Your raised bed looks perfect for effective and efficient working.  

I have never heard of "potato onions"; do you recommend them? Your plant sources from your parents' garden provides a nice memory. 

Planting your onions on 9/11 makes a nice memorial. Some may not see the value of onions, but after a season or two of growing your own leaves gentle memories of days gone by. 

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 15, 2012 at 6:19pm

iSpud, Great to try different kinds.  I've finally settled on the one, which grows very well in this climate and tastes great, Inchellium Red.  Too much effort now for me to grow other types, and this one has done well for me for 10 years.   I read somewhere that garlic adapts to your local conditions if you save the biggest heads to plant the next year, so I do. Just planted 35 jumbo cloves, which if they all grow will give 35 jumbo heads of garlic, which is plenty for me to eat plus have more for next year.  

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The first raised bed is filled and planted.  Looking around the web, this is a fairly standard design. I have to agree with the afficionados of raised beds. Once the hard work of putting it together and filling with soil/compost mix is done, raking and planting it was easy.

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My hands are fairly big.  These are big garlic heads.

Here is the first raised bed, filled, about to be planted with alliums (garlic, multiplier onions, and garlic chives) arranged to be planted. In addition to the garlic cloves, there are 35 "potato onions" (strange name, they are all onion, no potato), plus sets for scallions from Egyptian walking onions (not from Egypt and they don't walk, in 3 narrowly spaced rows of about 10 sets each), plus one row of starts from garlic chives. That last is a mix of roughly 4th generation seed saving from a northern Chinese variety, and some clusters that I rescued a few years ago from my late parents yard. They had grown there as a "weed" for over 40 years, but I recalled I had planted them from seed as a boy, thinking they were nice to look at.  They had self seeded for decades, annoying my parents but I was glad to have the memory.  The leaves are finer and more tender than the Chinese variety, but quite a bit smaller.  Planting them together, I imagine they will informally hybridize, and maybe something in between will result.

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All of the alliums should be deer resistant.  They do well for me when planted in the fall.  I usually plant multiplier onions on 9/11.  I remember to do that because I was planting them that day when the attack occurred.  Planting should be OK until late October, here.

The beds have a dose of compost from my kitchen waste composter, which has lots of red wiggler worms. No table with built-in composter though.

Comment by Idaho Spud on September 14, 2012 at 8:33am

Sentient, your raised beds sound great.  Maybe I'll get the ambition to make one.  You and Joan talk about them enough to give me the desire.  Thanks.

Your talk about garlic gave me the reminder to go to the Farmers Market tomorrow and buy 10 or more varieties to try.  I'm going to keep much better track of what I plant from now on, so I can make good judgments about what I like and what does well here.

Joan, that's interesting.  I don't think watching worms would bother me, but it seems like extra work, because I'd want a larger one outside as well.  Right now I have a small container in the kitchen that I empty on the large compost pile outside every day.  That table does give me an idea though.  I wonder if a large bag, or several smaller ones, outside would work.  I'm thinking it would give my pile more oxygen than it gets now, because I'm lazy about turning it.

The temperature here for the last week has been in the 70s, and 40s at night, with 40 degrees being the lowest it reached so far.  The forecast for next week is 80s and 50s.

Comment by Joan Denoo on September 13, 2012 at 9:44pm

Digestive Table

I have never seen an idea like this before and I am not sure I would want to eat as I watch worms. However, the concept intrigues me. 

Comment by Sentient Biped on September 13, 2012 at 9:00pm

Got up to 100 here today.  I expect it Fall to arrive like gangbusters any day.  Thought it was here last week.

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Joan I couldn't handle a frost in August.  It would really get to me!   I would need a greenhouse!  You are made of tougher stuff than I am.  :)

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iSpud your temp sounds like mine right now, except still a bit warmer here.  No rain yet.  That's not unusual in my area.  Last rain was.... June?  Will be glad when the rains start.  Watered all of the newly planted trees, after applying a thick compost mulch.  Labor of love, and maybe a new generation will benefit from the oxygen, shade, and beauty, some day, so a little water invested now is a good thing.

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Today I built a raised bed.  For engineering simplicity, I used 2X6s that were 8 feet long.  Cut some in half, so the beds are 4ft by 8ft.  They are 2 timbers high, which makes them a foot deep.  On the bottom, I screwed on chicken wire.  That's to keep moles from tunneling upward and disrupting the plants.  Then  bottom liner of cardboard and old cotton factory-made quilt that was about to disintegrate.  That's to keep perennial weeds and thistle from growing up through the new soil.  Eventually the bottom will degrade, so the beds will be connected to the underlying soil structure, which is good.  I think.  I filled it half full today.  Then wore out.  The filler is about 3/4 topsoil and 1/4 yard debris compost.  Roughly.  I get the compost at a composting center locally, $25 per cubic yard, which is what my truck holds.  The dry soil is too hard to dig.  I made use of mole hills, filling my wheelbarrow with the tops of mole hills.  There are many, many, many, many of those.  The moles make the topsoil nice and granular and loose in their hills.  I figure they are bringing up minerals too, from the lower layer of soil.  Thank you moles.  We also had a fence put in, and the post holes were surrounded by the finely ground 'waste' soil, so I used that too.  Watered it in, mixed together, watered in, mixed, and raked.

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Plan on filling the rest of the bed on Sat or Sun.  Honor the Sabbath, not.  Then I can plant garlic and heritage onions - white multiplier onions, my favorite.  I've been growing the multipliers from just a couple, to now a few dozen.  Now there are enough that if next year's crop is generous, I will finally have a lot to eat.  So far just eating a rare few, to save and expand the "seed" crop.  Sticking mainly with Inchelium Red garlic, which grows so well here I find it hard to believe.  Love that garlic.  Last year I grew them in barrels which worked great, but the raised beds have more room, and with the larger amount of soil should need less watering.  Plus, it's in the countryside and the sun is really brighter there - I hope that makes for bigger and tastier crop.

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The only fall planted veg's this time, for me, are the onions and garlic.  So that is the only bed that needed "urgent"  preparation.  The others can be built through the winter.  Maybe set one or two up as cold frames?

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I'm exhausted and my back hurts.  And my knees.  All of which is good.  There was much to get out of my system.

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Peace and love to my fellow godless gardeners.

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