Anyone make their own pot ash? I did this last week, I burned some of the brush I've been clearing then spread it on the garden planted last week.
I just finished planting the rest of the tomatoes today. Herbs and cole crops will be nest. Curcurbits, corn and melons will be the last to get planted...oh, and potatoes. Wife bought some potato seeds to try, so they will be planted whenever they arrive.
Looks like I'll be doing container garden again this year and purchasing my plants except for those that are direct seeded. Reading some of you are Planting onions brought to mine back in the mid-60s we live further out on Long Island's East End. Lots of farms out that way back then, There was a Farm Stand we used to shop. The farmer's wife worked the stand, however on occasion the farmer would help out. When I got the chance to talk to the farmer it was a joy for me, being a novice gardener one of the tips he gave me was on planting onion sets. He said to plant rows with the onions touching each other. When the onions grew a little to pluck every other one to be used as a spring onion leaving the remainder to grow to maturity.
The only problem with onion sets is they can carry onion maggots and you can lose your entire crop, sometimes for years, unless you use a bunch of insecticide to prevent it. Using seeds broadens your variety selection and avoids diseases and pests. We used onion sets for a number of years until one year we got infested sets and they contaminated our onion crops for years. You can use them in containers however, and if you get infected/infested, just dump out the soil and start fresh. That cannot be done in a field.
That's what I bought my firepit for. I use it in my compost pile and in the gardens, but mostly I use it because I like burning stuff.
I never had onion maggot problems, back in the sixties I wasn't fussy about were I purchased the sets, however the last few time I planted onions I purchased bundles from Dixondale Farms in Texas, they were clean and healthy. I haven't planted onion in a long time, but I do have a perennial planter of Egyptian walking onions, I've had them for about 40 years.
My memory has been very spotty lately but I was thinking about why I never got onion flies laying their eggs around my onions. My method to plant them was to dig a furrow (trench) deep enough to be able to add organic fertilizer then plant The Onions, then add a top layer of greensand. Researched a little found out onion flies don't like laying eggs in sand. Maybe the greensand discouraged them?
I just put a few onions tops from the store in the raised bed. So much to do now that spring is right around the corner.
If you like burning stuff, you'd be a happy camper around here! We have a whole field full of brush from my trail making, vine clearing. My arms and legs have the brusise and cuts to prove it. Eye doctor asked what happened yesterday. He said he does the same thing to save his trees. Vines are bad here in Florida.
I remember those days starting up the Garden and getting the yard ready for entertaining Unfortunately today I don't do that. I'd make a list of all the things I had to do even the small stuff like getting gas for the lawn mower checking things off made me feel good like I accomplished something. I miss it.
Tony I knpow the feeling, wish we could find a handy man around here, but then he'd have to be insured so fat chance. Used to be you could hire one and be ok, but now it's hard to trust people won't sue you.
That could be. Diatomaceous earth is said to discourage them as well. We don't have them here unless we bring them up in the bulbs themselves. We have started interplanting carrots with our onions and it seems to have remedied the problem.
Diatomaceous earth is one of the remedies for soft belly insects. I've used it for Slugs as well as eggshells which I also use for calcium for the tomato plants, it was supposed to help prevent Blossom end rot. There are plants that will discourage insect both flower and vegetable, Marigold, citronella, Mosquito plant. When I trimmed or dead-headed my marigolds I would put the cut offs around or hanging from my tomato plants.
After dragging the galvanized beds around the yard for a couple of weeks, I finally decided to put them on the side where the old raised bed used to be. The guy behind us planted a tree next to the fence which interferes with the sun/shade but it is what it is. I watered the soil well and will wait a couple of days for it to settle before I plant. We decided to moor the trellises with soil so they'd be more stable, so everything is pretty much done with these.
I also dragged this giant pot around the house and we filled it with fresh garden soil, too. I'm going to put pepper plants in this; it's about 30" across and waist high so a pretty large planter.