January is always met with garden thoughts. Maybe because the hype of the holiday season is gone, its beyond cold and the sun never seems to shine, but I always think about gardening and veggies in January. I pick through all my catalogues, read blogs like Subsistence Pattern (my fave!) to get motivated (and just a little awed), and I begin the planning phases of my summer garden. I pick and choose this variety over this one, buy doubles of that, and dream of the day when I can plant those. January is a lovely month for the garden (because its perfect and in my head!).
February comes and with it seed starting. Oh little seeds like broccoli and cabbage, onions and Brussel sprouts. They need a little coaxing, at least they do in my house, but those first green shoots make my day. They brighten February and March a lot.
Enter the protagonist. The onion. The fun and spicy onion. The wonderful little bulb that really makes or breaks Mexican Food, Italian, and of course Salsa. I love onions. I store them fresh and dehydrate them for onion powder and minced. They are great.
I plant a lot of onions. This year we had purple, yellow and white. I wanted to give them all a chance, see who really performed best.
Well to wrap this story up, no one stepped up and took first place. Most of the onions seemed stunted at gold ball stage with a large majority barely past onion set size. It was sad. I didn't cry, but I wanted to.
Nothing is every dull in the garden.
2 comments:
I have had many an onion year like that in the past, I still remember a few years back how disappointed I was when a whole entire row that I planted bolted to seed producing almost no bulbs at all. Next years onions will do much better for you no doubt.
After last years amazing harvest I was so sad to see these ones. However, I made broccoli soup today with a few of the onions and I have to say they have an amazing flavor. The silver lining has been found! :)
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