Gardening 2012 - Onions!

Red Marble Cippolini

A couple weeks back the Red Marble Cippolini's tops started to fall over - the first sign they're almost ready to harvest. Since it's supposed to rain on and off for the next four days I decided to pull them this evening rather than risk having them start growing or end up so wet they'd rot rather than dry.

From the 80 or so I planted we ended up with about 60 of the little cuties. They'll dry for a few days on the front porch, then I'll cut back the stalks, clean them up. The plan is to can them "agro-dolce" style in pints. Stay tuned!

Gardening 2012: July Update

It's time once more for a gardening update!

Coming Along

San Marzano Tomatoes: They're exceding every possible expectation. The plants in the upper bed have reached the tops of the double height ladders and although the three in the lower bed are not as tall, they easily match the others for quantity of fruit. We got our first ripe tomato from the lower bed on July 3rd. and now there are quite a few beginning to color. I'm a little concerned about the wilting leaves, but the plants seem otherwise healthy.

I didn't think I'd start needing to buy quart jars until August...

Gardening 2012 - Red Marble Cippolini

Red Marble Cippolini Onions

The onion sets arrived on Friday so that means it's time to set them out. This is the first time in decades we've grown onions, but these little red cippolini looked too delicious to pass up. Like the first batch of seeds these came from GrowItalian.

Red Marble Cippolini Sets

As they arrive onion sets don't look very promising. Just a bundle of scrawny, dessicated, scallion like things. Nevertheless, they will grow into those tasty little cippolini in about 3 months. GrowItalian, like all the other seed companies advertises their onion sets as "Approximately 60 per bunch.". In fact, there are more than 100 plants in this bunch.

Onion Sets in the upper bed

I of course planned space for 60. I ended up planting 80 in the existing raised beds and I'll probably put the rest in the yet to be completed "front" bed. Right now that area is shaded by the house to the south in the morning but in another month or so the sun will be high enough that it will get sun most of the day.

Gardening 2012 - Update #2

Things have slowed a bit as temperatures have came back to historical averages.

Cima di Rapa Seedlings

Most of the cima di rapa seedlings have developed their first true leaves so with a few sunny days they should really start to take off. I expect they'll need a second thinning this weekend.

We planted one 8 foot row of peas in the "old" raised bed along side a chain link fence on March 26 and  a couple short rows of beets on April 1.  The "new" upper bed got 2 short rows of Swiss Chard parallel to the cima di rapa at the same time. We'll pop in a couple more rows of each plus some more cima di rapa on the 15th. We should see our onion sets arriving sometime this week - half of 'em will go into the new bed and half into the old.

Leggy Tomatoes

The tomato transplants are getting a bit leggy in spite of the grow light and the south facing porch window. Unfortunately, night time temperatures are rather unreliably in the low to mid-40's so actually setting them out is still pretty risky. We do have more plants than we actually need so maybe this weekend we can come up with some sort of protection scheme and take a shot.

In any case, the parsley and thyme can certainly be potted up and hardened off this week. The parsley is looking great:

Root Development

Parsley Potted On