Last week, I wrote about our surprise May rain. Today, there is no more rain, only heat, surprise May heat: 99 right now and an expected 103 tomorrow. The flopped over onion tops called me outside into the heat anyway, and I have a hard time resisting the call of the vegetable, so I went out and harvested them.
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| Texas Legends, just after harvest. |
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| Hybrid Southern Belles, just after harvest. |
I've never had success with onions like I did this year. After seeing my parents' gorgeous onions the last couple years, I ordered seedlings from their source,
Dixondale Farms, then planted them right away when I received them in January in soil well-amended with compost and bonemeal. I kept them watered through the dry winter and spring.
In my garden that smelled like sweet onion salads, summertime picnics, and prepping for hamburger cookouts, I placed an old rack over my red wagon and created a portable drying rack I can roll in and out of the shed. The onions will dry out on the wagon-rack until the tops are wispy and the outer layers are silky wrappers. Since they're sweet onions, they won't last too long, so we'll be eating them in all sorts of incarnations around here in the next couple months.
Inside the shed, more garlic has joined the varieties I've already harvested. This week, I pulled up the Red Toch, a reliable Artichoke variety. Basque Turban and Belarus, early varieties I already posted about, are coloring beautifully as they dry.
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| Red Toch |
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| Basque Turban, like other Turban varieties, gets pretty candy stripes that darken to purple when completely dry. |
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| Belarus is beginning to get pretty color, too. |
Back outside, under bird netting, Jewel blueberries are beginning to color. Summer is coming, and I'm hungry for it.
Comments
I picked up a plant they were selling outside the Vons in La Cananda. You know how sometimes they'll sell a plant that doesn't work here, like cherries? thats what I was thinking after the purchase. Do you have any suggestions as to where i should plant it?