Planting Onions in the New Beds

I'll bet most people thought it would be too cold to garden when they saw a temperature of 27 degrees at 7 a.m. The brave souls who ventured out were Jamie, Susan, G.A., Bob H., Janet, intern McGehee Marsh with her friend David, and myself. By 10 a.m. when we started, it was sunny and we were reasonably comfortable as we worked.

The guys working on the beds….almost done!!

We needed to get a lot done on the beds and the onions needed to get in the ground. Both were accomplished. We had four men today, and they were moving the blocks pretty fast. Great job guys. The ladies got busy with the onion sets. These were from Dixondale Farms, and the few that we had last year were really beautiful. I hope we get a big harvest of the beauties this year. We planted 'Candy' (a large sweet yellow), 'Red Candy Apple' (large red), and 'Super Star' which is a white onion. Before planting we worked in earthworm castings and mycorrhizal inoculant. Per Dixondale instructions, we dug a trench between the rows, spread some bone meal and filled back with soil. Later on they will get some nitrogen fertilizer.

Janet and McGehee planting onions.

Susan and I measured our area to plant raspberries, and we will have about a 20 ft. row. The bushes need to be planted about 3 ft. apart, so we will need at least 6 plants. I checked with Dan West, and they will have bushes some time next month, but are not sure when because of the unusually cold weather we've been having.

We were blessed with another big seed donation. This one came from Heirloom Seeds and Things http://stores.seedsandthings.com in Georgia, who wanted them to be used by Plant-A-Row for the Hungry gardens and/or community gardens. The seeds will be used by our PAR gardens in addition to Urban Farms, and Lauren Bangasser at the Grahamwood School garden. I believe we may have some seeds left if anyone knows of a worthy community garden group. Thank you Jennifer and Andy. BTW,  we purchased our 'Tennessee Red' peanuts from them.

Heirloom veggie seed donation.

That is about all the news from the garden for this week. I hope you will be able to get some of your own gardening done in the warm weather predicted for this week.

'Til later,

Dianne