Just saw this Lissa. Unless you make your own hay use caution in using horse manure. Some hay producers are using a weed herbicide that doesn't break down for several years. Even after going through the horse. A fellow produce grower got some horse hay that got rained on (Not fit for horses) for his cows. Spread the manure in his patch and when he planted several thousand tomatoes they all died.
That looks like fun compared to shoveling more snow! You are over a month ahead of us here in central and northern MN. I usually have my onions in by the middle of April, and by mid May 275 miles north of here at our cabin.
Snow tomorrow. You can’t hurt onions much. I planted them Feb. 1 one year. That dirt in the plantbed is pure chicken poo. I cleaned the shed in August and refilled the bed. It broke down nicely since then. A little warmer and I’ll plant lettuce. I put canvas over my earlier beds. Old farmers tell me it keeps the plants up to 15 degrees warmer than without.
That rich soil you have been making should be really good for onions. Hopefully you can share some pictures of your garden's progress. I planted a few things out in mid march during a really warm late winter/early spring one year. But everything I planted later matured just as fast in the end so there was really no advantage in that regard, but it was fun experiment with that anyways.
Wont be any planting here soon. -2F tonight. +3F tomorrow Cant even see my garden now due to the piles of snow. We are experiencing some real winter. Cant wait for summer!
As you can see winter showed up this morning. I built these 4 raised beds last fall. The garden is 5000 sq ft but I wanted to try some gardening without bending over. The beds are 3 tall x 4 x 16. I filled them with 6 dump trailers full of composted horse manure. Can’t wait.
Starting from seed is the best way to bigger and better onions for sure, but I don't start anything indoors and am so busy in the spring I just go and buy 100 each of red, white and yellow onion bulbs. Last year I was disappointed in the quality of many of them, as a higher number than average went to seed during the growing period.
I have had this problem but it was because I crowded them. I do about 8” apart now with good success.
We eat them at all stages, including green onion, smaller onions, and finally completely grown onions. For the storage onions, I wait until the tops fall over, then during a dry spell in mid to late July I will pull them, lay them out in the sun for a sunny part of day, then braid them about 8 to a bunch, and hang underneath the overhang of my garden shed on hooks in the shade for up to two weeks. When the skins are dry I then hang them in the basement for use. We eat them fresh, and I use so many for my canning recipes that I only have enough to last us until about Christmas at the latest most years. At all stages of drying and storage you have to go through all of them periodically and cull any that are a little soft.
