MaryE's blog: 2021 #5 Onion seeds

Yesterday I bought onion seeds at a seed company that sells in bulk as well as having the usual racks of seeds and tools, etc., in their nice nursery. They have a seed cleaning, storing, selling business to supply large farms in Idaho, and the nursery is a sideline. The store has a wall of little drawers that remind me of the old card catalog in the library. I bought 2 oz of yellow and 2 two ounces of white onion seed. Today I filled a bunch of 4x4 pots and planted all the onions I will plant this year. The 2 flats of pots are on a heat mat and covered loosely with a plastic bag that once had something like a pillow in it. I save things I think I might use for garden related purposes and that is one reason my garden shed and greenhouse are not as organized as they should be. I will need to water those pots daily or maybe more often for the next few days. Onions are slow to germinate. All the onions I have ever planted have black seeds and are hard with ridges, basically round. Seeds are fascinating. Onion seeds are quite a bit larger than anything in the cabbage family. Funny that I get a 10 pound cabbage from a seed this o big and a 1 pound onion from one almost twice that size.

I've been wanting to grow figs. The varieties that our son in law has growing in western Oregon are not hardy enough to grow here. I thought I was out of luck but learned that Hardy Chicago fig is good to -20. It will grow here! I found it listed in two catalogs but ouch! the price. And yesterday I found a whole rack of them at Home Depot for about 1/3 what it would have cost to get one mailed to me! The rack was full and I don't think they had been out of cold storage very long. It's dormant and I put it in our spare refrigerator so it will stay that way until I plant it. We haven't had a deep freeze so far this winter and what snow we had has all melted. I'll prepare the spot I have chosen and get it into the ground soon. The mature size will be 10-12 ft wide.

Today is in the 30's with wind. I probably won't get any tree pruning done today. Snow showers are in the forecast today and tonight. There are plenty of weeks left before the trees will even think about waking up.

A few days ago I emptied the fermenting crock and now have 2 gallons of sauerkraut stored in our spare refrigerator. I'll start another batch in a few weeks. My crock is a German style and made for fermenting. I could make a lot of other products but so far have only made kraut in it. My mother in law made kraut in an open crock and covered the salted shredded cabbage with a dinner plate weighted down with a rock, then covered it all with a dishtowel. She had to tend it every day to try to keep it from spoiling. Some of her batches were way too salty. She didn't measure. I do. Twelve to 15 pounds of shredded cabbage to 4 tablespoons of salt, and enough lightly salted water to cover it by a couple of inches. My fermenting crock came with weights is much easier than Mom's (no daily tending) and I have not had a failure in several years of using it. You can see pictures, etc., here www.sausagemaker.com They sell all sorts of interesting things!

The truck farm down the road a couple of miles from us is putting in several hoop houses. They already had two. I want to go look in a few days.

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