…The ground that is, the nice moist soil in the raised beds not the muck and mire.
For the theme, “Make Do”, my header shows that sometimes you can’t always plant the whole bed like you planned, sometimes you just have to “Make Do”.
Dirt and I got back from visiting up north and seeing Anna’s little bunnies…
Only to find out that Bet let it rain while we were gone. Oh well, the theme is make do and so we shall.
The onion beds are well out of the low area, the potatoes aren’t so lucky. And because the onion plants arrived as we were headed out the driveway, we tackled the onion beds first.
They were a dream to get ready, not very weedy because the beds had been well prepped last fall,
so a quick weeding..(that’s Dirt’s behind not mine)…
Some raking,
Then stamping in the planting holes with my groovy planting tool
and the onions go in. Not too deep, ’bout an inch, they like to stay right on the surface of the soil.
I ordered onion plants from Dixondale in Texas, not as cheap as seed of course but not the big fat hassle either, sometimes it pays to pay.
Not to mention, Dixondale says that each bundle has approximately sixty plants, boy howdy several of them had nearly twice that. I’m a pleased customer for sure.
I may get back to my practice of planting onion seeds directly in the fall and in flats in early winter but for now, I sorta like this method.
On Wednesday, tomorrow, I’ll bring out some plastic garbage cans, maybe just one for now, set them by the onion patch, fill them a third of the way with fresh horse manure, just the nice fresh “pasture apples” (we have a bit close by) and then nearly fill with water, gathered from the pasture puddles, let it sit for a day.
On Friday I’ll siphon off the liquid, put it in a sprayer and spray the onion plants in the morning. Replenishing the water and manure as needed and repeat each week. Onions are heavy feeders, they like a lot of nitrogen, some weeks I’ll add some extras like Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salts) or Sea-90 into the liquid in the sprayer.
When the manure solids get high and are lookin’ depleted, instead of putting more manure and water in the big bucket, I’ll scoop the slurry out and use it in and around other plants, especially light nitrogen users
I’ll tell you all about potato plantin’ tomorrow, I wrote it all out but moved it to another draft, too much to read in one day!
The visit with Anna and Justin was wonderful and it was very sweet to get together with our dear friends the Coulters.
Thanks for holdin’ my place in the world Dear Reader, visits are good and necessary to the soul but gettin’ back in the saddle just feels right. It’s where God put me afterall, must be why it always feels so very good.
For now you might want to wander over to my side board and go see what the others have for my theme pick. “Make Do”.
man that’s plum surely a lot of onions girl! i think we use about 50 a year in this house! ha ha
smiles, bee
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Lots of work done here Lanny on your Make Do.
Like the bunnies too, nicely told too.
I like your home made stamping planting tool, very neat. It sure is a lot of onions though as empress bee says. I’m glad you’ve managed to get them in despite having all that rain clogged soil.
Hi Lanny, Good to see you back safe and sound! Those are some awfully cute bunnies..I don’t know if I like bunnies or goats better..love them both! I see you use five gallon buckets like I used to..for weeds and to cart around whatever you needed to carry.
The onions beds are beautiful, I used to grow Walla Wallas from seed..I know they are short term keepers but I love the flavor. I will throw some in the ground someplace..and then chop them up and put them in the freezer for my famous..ok not so famous Green Beans and Bacon with onion and just a splash of vinegar and fresh ground black pepper..try that some night! Well bacon makes everything taste better..even my cooking! Hope the rain stops soon..my brother says that in Oregon this is the wettest month he has ever seen:(
Lanny: Fun post with all your wet planting and making do. Great planting tool with nice spacing.
Learning to make do with what is can be an art in itself. I enjoyed this post very much.
WOW – we could do a swap – some composted goat poop for about 3 inches of that excess water! Dryer than the Sahara here (Texans are prone to exaggeration – just in case you hadn’t noticed) and no likely moisture soon. Onions and taters – good start – the bunnies are pretty – is she raising them for meat or for cute?
That is a LOT of onions, Lanny! We don’t use many onions here. You’ve been working hard again, I see, and gettin a lot accomplished. Those bunnies are as cute as can be!
Water is nice… to drink, or through a summertime sprinkler… in moderation…