Onions and garlic, or spring has sprung!

This was a big week at the urban farm-- I transplanted for the first time this year outside of the hoop house. Despite waking up to snow flurries yesterday morning and the frost free date being a month away, there are no nights in the nine day forecast with freezing temperatures. I now am officially stricken with spring fever! (It also means I have been stricken with bike fever and will need to budget my time better so that I can fit in some rides along with work.)

You can't beat this outlook!

Onions

The first crop transplanted this week were the onions. I am testing out both the transplants I started from seed (Red Amposta and Yellow Sweet Spanish Utah) and sets (Yellow Stuttgarter).

The advantage to transplants grown from seeds are the amazing number of varieties available and the bulbs should grow larger. I have never used sets before, and I found out how easy they are-- just buy and plant. However, there were only three options available at my local garden store-- just one each of yellow, white, and red. From what I have read transplants produce onions that store better, though a friend from the community garden has had the opposite experience. I'm looking forward to seeing how they compare!

Sets: I selected the yellow option.

Transplants: they look small now, but I am excited to see how they turn out.

Because our urban farm has a small footprint, I am using intensive planting methods, many of which are described in the book All New Square Foot Gardening. According to this book, you can plant 12 onions per square foot. Since I am going to grow onions to full size, I decided to plant only 9 per square foot (this is at least double the density of my onions last year). Because of the high density, it is important to keep plants evenly spaced. I ran across a website that had a great tip, using a muffin pan to map out where to plant.

This muffin tin had the right spacing to give me 9 plants per square foot.

My muffin pan grid keeps me in line.

Garlic

I am very excited to plant garlic this year-- my first very first time trying it in my garden! I was lucky enough to have several bulbs of garlic leftover from my CSA. They stored very well over the winter, so these are a good variety to save. I broke up each bulb and planted the cloves, just like the onion sets.

Enjoy your early spring everyone!

Garlic cloves-- each one will yield one whole bulb.