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.)
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| 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!
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| Sets: I selected the yellow option. |
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| 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.
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| This muffin tin had the right spacing to give me 9 plants per square foot. |
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| 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!
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Garlic cloves-- each one will yield one whole bulb.
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