This will be the year I let them grow freely and fry them up with a vengeance, or whack them down, till the ground and see if blueberry bushes can’t complete the coup d’état.
I never had wild onions out back. Are they useful for cooking? Do they grow an onion similar to store bought ones or are they more like scallions? I don’t care too much for strong onions and prefer the more mild types.
I planted some sweet Spanish onions last year but didn’t mark their locations very well. As a result they ‘got lost’ at the end of the season. Maybe they’ll resurface this season. The main wild things I have are violets and after one year of spreading seeds around some patches of red clover which have been returning since. I am curious what this year will bring.
The red clover and violets both sound like pretty good things to have growing wildly. The onions, on the other hand, really are just more of a nuisance. The yard has an onion-y smell, which I don’t mind. I’ve always liked the everything and the onion bagel, personally. That said, I have not found them very useful in the kitchen. These wild onions run rampant throughout Brooklyn and some other gardeners I know have very strong feelings against them as nuisance, invasive plants. Others are more like me, open to trying to see if they can be useful but I haven’t actually heard of anyone successfully putting them to use. I tried last year to make an onion soup out of them. It was a LOT of work (they’re stringy, which provides plenty of room for dirt and debris to lodge), and the bud itself is rather small. The broth that was the end product was okay but not totally worth the effort.
Not sure what I’m going to do with them this year. Probably some combination of what I did last year — tilling the front yard and grabbing as many as I can. This year I think I’m going to be more comfortable simply throwing them away — I’ve had a hard time doing that with nearly anything in the past, and most things at least get recycled through my compost but anything invasive like this is, of course, banned from that bin. I’ll plant alongside whatever is remaining. I haven’t decided what, yet.
This year the guiding principle for my garden planning is going to be simple and pragmatic. I’ve been increasing greens in my diet. Apparently other people have too, and their prices seem to reflect it. I’ve had very good luck with green leaf lettuce in boxes, so I may expand that and check out conditions that kale prefer.
It looks like my first potato experiment failed. Started from store bought potatoes that started growing while in the basement, they grew quite fast once I put them into soil. I suspect the problem was water related. In between a handful of other pots I wasn’t able to monitor them too well. I’ll give it another try, the speed they grew at before they died was encouraging.
Do you think it was too much water, or not enough? We’ve had a lot of precipitation this season. I was out back today lamenting the pooling water in some planters I still have out. Given the (possibly) impending snow, I didn’t even think it was worth it to try to drain them. Nothing is growing there but it’s very good soil, and I keep them on hand in case my house plants need a little support over the winter and, for whatever’s remaining, I don’t have to buy so much soil in the spring…another trap I’m trying to avoid this spring.
My best guess at the potatoes is too much water. They were kind of hard to reach over the rest of the indoor pots so I would just water them without checking how wet they were. If I recall, potatoes like a well drained soil. I’ve also been getting interested in sweet potatoes. A recent podcast http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/1054-how-what-and-why-saving-seeds
mentioned them and it sounded pretty east to start and upkeep them.
I keep old pots and use their soil as needed too. Once or twice I transferred a bunch of ants with the soil, but wormwood got rid of them in a day or two. I will be looking to grow more wormwood and have to check it’s dried flowers for seeds. The seeds are tiny so I’ll probably try a moist paper towel and see if anything grows from the flower dust. Most of my plastic boxes have seen better days and I am planning on putting my unused pieces of plywood into making a few boxes. Plywood is not the ideal box material, but with some protective coating it should be good for a few years outside. The pieces are also a good size to sit on top of my deck rails.
I’ve slowly been coming up with ideas for the garden, but it remains to be seen how many actually get put into use.
I never had wild onions out back. Are they useful for cooking? Do they grow an onion similar to store bought ones or are they more like scallions? I don’t care too much for strong onions and prefer the more mild types.
I planted some sweet Spanish onions last year but didn’t mark their locations very well. As a result they ‘got lost’ at the end of the season. Maybe they’ll resurface this season. The main wild things I have are violets and after one year of spreading seeds around some patches of red clover which have been returning since. I am curious what this year will bring.
The red clover and violets both sound like pretty good things to have growing wildly. The onions, on the other hand, really are just more of a nuisance. The yard has an onion-y smell, which I don’t mind. I’ve always liked the everything and the onion bagel, personally. That said, I have not found them very useful in the kitchen. These wild onions run rampant throughout Brooklyn and some other gardeners I know have very strong feelings against them as nuisance, invasive plants. Others are more like me, open to trying to see if they can be useful but I haven’t actually heard of anyone successfully putting them to use. I tried last year to make an onion soup out of them. It was a LOT of work (they’re stringy, which provides plenty of room for dirt and debris to lodge), and the bud itself is rather small. The broth that was the end product was okay but not totally worth the effort.
Not sure what I’m going to do with them this year. Probably some combination of what I did last year — tilling the front yard and grabbing as many as I can. This year I think I’m going to be more comfortable simply throwing them away — I’ve had a hard time doing that with nearly anything in the past, and most things at least get recycled through my compost but anything invasive like this is, of course, banned from that bin. I’ll plant alongside whatever is remaining. I haven’t decided what, yet.
This year the guiding principle for my garden planning is going to be simple and pragmatic. I’ve been increasing greens in my diet. Apparently other people have too, and their prices seem to reflect it. I’ve had very good luck with green leaf lettuce in boxes, so I may expand that and check out conditions that kale prefer.
Have you grown greens with (or without) success?
It looks like my first potato experiment failed. Started from store bought potatoes that started growing while in the basement, they grew quite fast once I put them into soil. I suspect the problem was water related. In between a handful of other pots I wasn’t able to monitor them too well. I’ll give it another try, the speed they grew at before they died was encouraging.
Do you think it was too much water, or not enough? We’ve had a lot of precipitation this season. I was out back today lamenting the pooling water in some planters I still have out. Given the (possibly) impending snow, I didn’t even think it was worth it to try to drain them. Nothing is growing there but it’s very good soil, and I keep them on hand in case my house plants need a little support over the winter and, for whatever’s remaining, I don’t have to buy so much soil in the spring…another trap I’m trying to avoid this spring.
My best guess at the potatoes is too much water. They were kind of hard to reach over the rest of the indoor pots so I would just water them without checking how wet they were. If I recall, potatoes like a well drained soil. I’ve also been getting interested in sweet potatoes. A recent podcast
http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/1054-how-what-and-why-saving-seeds
mentioned them and it sounded pretty east to start and upkeep them.
I keep old pots and use their soil as needed too. Once or twice I transferred a bunch of ants with the soil, but wormwood got rid of them in a day or two. I will be looking to grow more wormwood and have to check it’s dried flowers for seeds. The seeds are tiny so I’ll probably try a moist paper towel and see if anything grows from the flower dust. Most of my plastic boxes have seen better days and I am planning on putting my unused pieces of plywood into making a few boxes. Plywood is not the ideal box material, but with some protective coating it should be good for a few years outside. The pieces are also a good size to sit on top of my deck rails.
I’ve slowly been coming up with ideas for the garden, but it remains to be seen how many actually get put into use.