Tag Archives: onions

2021-1st garden update – Onions, Potatoes & Sweet Potatoes

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Spring has brought some wonderful weather.
We’ve began our gardening season.
I’m still using my Blue Jean Water Tote
that I made back in 2014. It’s held up really well.


I got two slips off the sweet potato vine.
Hopefully they’ll produce a sweet potato or two.
Happy Gardening Season!

 

 

March 2021 The Feeling of Spring is on it’s way

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During the middle of February, our region got an ice-fall followed by a snowfall. Fortunately, it wasn’t dreadful, our region caught the edge of the artic blast that devastated so much of the country. The snow left long before the bitter temperatures did.

While the ground was covered in ice/snow, Spring seemed just a fairytale in a time far far away and the gardening season even further. It was out of our reach except in our memory, daydreams and picture books.
We’ve got Yukon gold potato sets, onions sets and a several packs of seeds on the ready to plant as soon as the weather breaks and last frost is a memory.
As I looked out across the snow covered yard to our garden spot, I longed for the gardening season to begin. Even though we’ve shrunk our garden to a small more manageable spot, it’s still a joy and relaxing to get out a work in. Plus the delicious veggies, oh yes.

As I was tidying up my potato bin, I found a sweet potato that apparently read my mind about missing gardening and felt sorry for me. It decided to break free of the plastic microwavable bag and grow.
Well, cool, I’ve been wanting to start a sweet potato vine, I just didn’t think the pre-treated microwave ready bagged ones would grow. Guess I was wrong.
I fixed it a small jar of water and set it in the window to see if it would grow further. In the above photo, except for the toothpicks, is how it was straight out of the potato bin. It was giving it a wonderful effort to grow.
I had my doubts that it was going to do anything for the first week and a half, then it surprised me with roots and lovely little green leaves. Feels like a bit of Spring in my home. 😀
It looks as if, I might get 2 or 3 slips (vines) to plant in the garden. If I can keep the vines alive, Hopefully, they’ll grow a sweet potato or two for us to have for dinner this Summer. ;D

My daffodils are blooming. They are such a cheerful spot of color against the gray and browns that dominate the landscape.
I was going to skip mentioning the folk lore of ‘snow lays once on daffodils’… however… I went surfing and from a quick look, the lore is disappearing off the net. There are fewer mentions of it now, so I feel I should go ahead and give it this quick mention lest it is forgotten.
There’s an old saying that’s been passed down, in many southern families, for oodles of generations, that says,
‘snow lays once on daffodils’.
Without fail, even if it’s just a dusting or light snow, every year, the saying holds true.
I never was clear on if the snow has to be after they bloom, so whenever it snows and the stems are up, I take photos and hope for the best.

As an added thought here:
I feel like we all need to keep some of the fun lores going, if for no other reason than to give newer and future generations a much needed chuckle for the day.

Do you have any pleasant or fun lore that you and your family pass down through the generations?

I wish you all a week of Sunshine and Smiles.

 

 

 

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2020 Gardening and A Lily-Bug

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So far this season, We’ve had good crops of most things. We got about 50 or 60 pounds of potatoes. It’s been quite dry and the squash plants didn’t get half the size they should have. Our corn is maybe only 4 1/2 feet tall and loaded in ears.

Fortunately, we haven’t had much problems with insect-pests this year. We haven’t seen a bean beetle, tater-bug, squash-bug, horn worm nor cut worms. This is an absolute first for us. It’s a blessing, but also kind of odd feeling. Early in the season, We experienced a short-lived threat from flea beetles on the potato plants. The lady bugs moved in and took control and the flea beetle invasion was resolved.

As for 4 legged critters: deer and rabbits, well they’ve been enjoying our garden and wiped all our beans and one row of cucumbers. The deer keep the tomato plants trimmed back a bit.

We discovered recently that there’s been a 2 legged critter in our garden and it helped itself to some of our biggest green tomatoes and possibly some other stuff. The way we know it’s not a deer thief is that the vines are damaged where deer snack on them. However, The vines are in tack right down to the tomato caps where our large green tomatoes have disappeared, so only a bi-ped could accomplish that feat.
You may ask, How do we feel about someone taking our produce? Well, we’re a bit sad that the person didn’t just come and ask for the vegetables. We’d have gladly shared, since our garden produces more than we need. We hope whoever took the vegetables has good health and benefits from them.

I haven’t done any crafting for the past few months. I’ve lost my inspiration. I hope to find inspiration again someday. So, I don’t really have anything to post about unless it’s a holiday and I post a greeting.

For now, I’m like the little lady bug in my lily.
I’m hunkered down and praying for a miracle.

I send huge wishes for health and happiness to you all.

 

 

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2020 Garden Update & Shelibean’s Good Attitude

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Sheli’s photo expresses how life has been going around my home… And I’m guessing it may be the way life is going for some other folks homes as well.
I wish you all the best of health and happiness. Big hugs to you all!
~*~
We got most of our garden planted over the past few weeks. We’ve still got a few things to go. It helps, to add cheer to our life, walking to the garden and seeing the plants growing with a promise of veggies to come… or a promise of watching deer and bunnies feasting on our plants. 😉
Happy gardening!

 

Potatoes, squash, beans, chard, basil, onions, & Temperature Blanket Update

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We got a pretty mess of vegetables out of the garden the other day. We were happy we could harvest a few squash.
We had several potatoes; we used some and stored some for later.We have a rule at our house that the first mess of squash has to be fried. It used to be fried in oil in a skillet method. A few years ago, we needed to change our way of cooking to be healthier, so we make a stir-fry instead. Our stir fry is a bit of olive oil, squash, potatoes, basil, onions, and a bit of cornmeal just for nostalgia. 😉

Thankfully, our area is finally getting some rain. My husband thought it a good idea to go ahead and harvest all the potatoes so they wouldn’t ruin. I agreed with him since the potato plants were starting to die and since we got such a nice harvest a few days before.
Considering that we didn’t plant but 5 lbs. of potatoes, I think we got a good harvest.
I’m guessing there’s probably a couple pecks (half bushel)
We’re happy with them.

Temperature Blankets Update:

I decided to skip May temperature blankets update and wait until June to do my update so they’d be a bit bigger than every couple weeks.
They’re still coming along fairly well.

Wishing you all a great weekend!

 

 

 

 

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5th Garden Update 2019

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One of our yellow cherry tomatoes is ripening. It’s one of the vines we’re growing in a container on the back porch.
The tomatoes in the garden have babes on the vine, so hopefully we’ll have a few big tomatoes too.
Our chard is beautiful and delicious.
The onion bulbs are getting larger.
The squash and cucumbers vines are starting to bloom.
Something has been eating on the bean vines.
We found a baby bean on one of the luckier bean vines.
Our potato plants are big and healthy and new potatoes are cracking the ground at their base.
Last but not least our peppers are starting to produce. These are orange peppers and will take a many weeks to ripen fully… although they are quite edible at any stage of the growing/ripening time.
So despite our region having hot dry weather, our garden is doing well.
I hope all your gardens are productive.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

 

1st harvest 2019 – Temperature blankets update

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I’m a little late on these two project updates. Life’s been sidetracking my blogging here lately.
So here goes…

First harvest 4-28-2019 – a mess of green onions.
If you followed my blog over the years, you’ll probably guess what that means… that’s right, our first fresh batch of bruschetta.

 High & Low Temperature Blankets

Wishing you all a successful week.

3rd Garden Update of 2019

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The weather has been cold and hot and cold and hot and no wonder they call this time of year “pneumonia weather”. The sun makes it’s appearance from time-to-time, not too much time mind-you, it wouldn’t want us to get spoiled to enjoying it. Last frost it still some weeks away, so up and down the temperatures will continue to go.

We have a couple things making their appearance in the garden. The onions and radishes are always eager to be the first to start the season.

Even though our small garden looks sparse and sad, we know it won’t be too many weeks until it’ll start looking more greener and hopefully promising a harvest of vegetables.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!

 

 

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