Garden Update - Potato and Onion shopping for the 2020 season - 3/3/2020

in #garden • 5 years ago

I went shopping yesterday for my seed potatoes and also picked up some onions.

Onions happen to be the thing that I've NEVER gotten to grow in my garden. I did some research on youtube in the off season and found a video that described 3 types of onion growing and the pros and cons. There's growing from seed, which you have to start around October for a harvest in July. I have never tried the seed, but might do that this fall and see how that works out for the 2021 season. There's also the sets, which I have tried 3 or maybe 4 times and never had success.

The sets are where you pick up TINY little onions that are apparently a year or more old and don't have roots attached. I saw some of those yesterday:

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Those have never gotten big for me and produced large onions. At all.

The third way to grow onions are apparently getting the "onion bunches", which I found and got some yesterday. These are live plants that have roots still attached and have just been taken out of the ground and the dirt shaken off.

I got two varieties, a white and a red.

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We shall see if I have luck this time. I'm cautiously optimistic.

I also picked up (my main objective) lots of potatoes. I only got 2 varieties, but I think I got enough to do a bed of each.

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The dark red norland apparently have a quick turn around time, so I'll have to watch that and harvest appropriately. With the world situation, having potatoes that will grow and be harvestable in short order sounded like the way to go. It's possible I'll be able to harvest and then be able to reuse that bed space for a late summer planting of something else.

How are you doing on your garden preps for 2020?

See my other Gardening and Homesteading Posts

I do the Mittleider Method, see my Mittleider Gardening Posts

I also have tried the Square Foot Gardening Method

The Harbor Freight 6x8 Greenhouse

Various Techniques and Equipment

Harvesting Posts/General Updates


#food #homestead #homesteading #gardening
5 years ago in #garden by
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     5 years ago 

    I used to grow Yukon Gold potatoes, but changed over a few years back to the Dark red Norlands.

    I start onions from seed here in New England, in fact just made the first starting yesterday of the storage onions. I start them in March and harvest softball or larger size onions starting in late July.

    Here's a couple links:

    https://steemit.com/homesteading/@goldenoakfarm/the-first-seed-starting-of-2020-march-4-2020-goldenoakfarm

    https://steemit.com/life/@goldenoakfarm/a-harvest-august-16-2019-goldenoakfarm

    Walla onions - chopping crop September 2019.jpg

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     5 years ago 

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     5 years ago 

    I was just trying to plant some potatoes a few weeks ago. I got some green sprouting ones from the supermarket and plopped them in the ground. Nothing came up though though last year it worked (planted too late in Phoenix and couldn't enjoy the taters).

    For onions, have you tried just getting some good onions from the store and letting them grow some "hair" in the dark cupboard and then planting it?
    It worked for me. Best of luck getting your garden to grow!

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     5 years ago 

    Don’t give up on those potatoes. Some varieties take some time to get their greenery above ground. Give them some fertilizer also.

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