And the Gardening Year Begins

Here at Empty Nest Gardens Spring is in the Air.  With temperatures in the 70's it was a good day to plant onions.

My planting area is 8 foot by 3.5 foot.  I started by added 2 bags (3 cubic feet total) of Miracle Gro Garden Soil.  I turned it into the soil using a garden fork then using a garden rack I smoothed out the surface.

I bought 4 bunches of Texas Supersweet onion plants ($1 per bunch).  These are my favorite, they are so sweet and mild.  This is the only type of onion I plant. 

Just using my finger I poke a hole in the soil and insert one onion plant.  I do this over and over and over until they are all planted.  I water them in well and insert my onion label that a friend gave me years ago.  I should be eating green onions in about 4-6 weeks...yum yum.

In the garden a sure sign of spring are the blooming daffodils.  Aren't these just gorgeous?

I need to go pick a few daffys for my daughter.

Until next time,

Winter Onions

It has been very dry here so this week I was watering the garden.  I noticed my winter onions were getting large enough to harvest.

These are Texas Super Sweet onions that were planted last spring.  When I harvested the larger onions during the summer these were either too small to pull or over looked.  Every year I harvest 30-40 green onions in November or December.  It is so nice to have something fresh from the garden this time of the year. 

This is a native vine that has decided to grow on my fence and give me a little winter color.  How nice of it!
I hope you are enjoying the holiday season.
Until next time,

Quilts and Onions

Hello everyone,
This week I finished the 3 blocks for the March Star Crazy block-of-the-month quilt. 

These are the blocks I have finished so far, January thru March.  I don't like the 2 stars on the right.  There is not enough contrast so I will probably remake these in different colors. 

I have found the perfect spot to cut fabric....in my kitchen!!  I have a large bar area that is the perfect height for cutting fabric.  My cutting mat fits beside the stove and there is plenty of room to spread out my fabric.  The rug helps to cushion my feet so I am not standing on the hard tile floor for hours. 

This week I bought 3 bunches of Texas 1015 onions.  I usually buy Texas Supersweet.  The garden center told me that 1015 and Supersweet are the same so I am trusting them.  My 2 granddaughters are on spring break next week.  They are going to spend the week with me and have agreed to help me plant onions.  Let's see....3 bunches of onions, 50 onions per bunch and there are 3 of us.  I predict the kids (age 10 and 4) might get one bunch planted before they get bored.  Hey, that's okay,  I will take any help I can get! 

Have a good weekend.  Until next time,

   

Planting Garlic

Today it was 63 degrees here so I took the opportunity to plant my garlic.  These are heads of garlic that I grew in 2009.  I will use them as my "seeds". 

You are supposed to plant garlic after the first frost but we really haven't had many days since our first frost to plant anything.  I tried to plant last week but the ground was frozen and I could not get a fork to pierce the soil. 

Brutus decided he needed to help.  He is always in the middle of everything. 

My raised beds in the potager are numbered so I can record where everything is planted.  Today I am working in bed 5.  I pulled out my fork to start removing the winter weeds but decided I didn't really want to turn that much soil over.

I switched to my shuffle hoe.  This is one of my favorite tools.  Turning over too much soil will bring a lot of weed seeds to the surface and believe me they will all germinate.  This hoe will loosen the weeds and allows me to pick them out and throw into the long-term compost pile. 

I planted 2 varieties that I bought in 2007 from Seed Savers.  "Music" shown above is a hard neck variety.  You can see the hard stem that grows through the middle.  The hard neck variety stores the best.  "Tochliavri" is a soft neck variety and it does not store as long.  You can see in the first picture that it has started growing indoors.  It grows even if I store it in the dark.

 I immediately come inside, take my spiral notebook, draw my bed and note what is planted.  I have dug up too many plants because I didn't remember they were planted there.

Thank you for joining me in the garden today.

Until next time,

Kclily