Planted

Today when I realized it was sixty-five degrees out, I decided it was now or never. Time to plant my garlic and winter onions!  I'm always a little behind with fall planting, but this year I had an excuse.  Dan's been working on building new garden boxes below the main garden.   Because most of our back yard is a hill, we need to terrace to increase our tillable area.. The whole garden has been a disaster area work-in-progress since September.  

Our soil is poor and high in clay content, so before planting, Dan and I worked some dead leaves into the soil to loosen it and provide a few nutrients.  I planted one row of winter onions and one row of garlic.  This year's garden didn't produce as much garlic as I would have liked, so it was painful to raid my garlic jar for planting.  I planted the cloves as deep as I could push them with my finger, and I spaced them about 3-4 inches apart.

As for winter onions, I don't think many people know what they are.  You plant them in the fall and when they come up the next spring, you pull the green onions (scallions) and eat them while they're small (in the spring and early summer).  You leave a few plants, and after they flower, they develop heads of small bulbs.  In the fall, you harvest these bulbs (the sets) and plant them again for the next spring.  My grandpa always grew them, but somehow no one in our family saved the sets from his garden.  A few years ago, I found a seed catalog from Wisconsin that sold them.  The catalog called them "Egyptian Walking Onions".  My dad, my uncle and I have all been growing them now for a few years.  They are not quite as sweet as the ones my grandpa grew, and you can't pull them up easily (you need a small spade), but they're still enjoyable.  I wish, wish, wish we had saved sets from my grandpa's garden!