Tag Archives: onions

Offerings.

Jade green beans offering future pods. To the neighboring plot’s Bermuda grass? To the rabbits outside the fence? Or perhaps, to me. Or the birds if I’m gone.

Every so often someone tells me they don’t have a green thumb. Sometimes my thumb cracks and splits in its brown stained skin, but rarely is it green. Those rare times are paired with a green index finger because I’ve been squashing harlequin beetles and their drunken juices of plant blood paints my skin for a time.

Recently a woman I know said the same as an excuse for not knowing what a corn ear worm was. It reminded me of something I read less recently about how common it is now to preface a statement with a qualifier of a group one belongs to. “As an X person, I think Y.” Or, as a person with A experience, my perspective on this is B.”

The piece went on to discuss how such a qualifier seems to negate the ability to enter into discourse. I cannot begin to disagree with Y or B, without it being taken as an affront to the person’s experience as a person of X or A.

And so this woman qualified her lack of knowledge in the tamest way, and while it isn’t the same line of thinking as the piece I read, it does remind me how somehow, often women, provide an excuse for their curiosity or lack of knowledge. Why is that? What conditioning created that habit and why does it persist?

Anyway. Double digressions entwined in a mess.

I don’t feel as though I have a green thumb. I feel as though I offer seeds to the soil and watch them burst, wobble, or waiver. If I think I start to know better, nature will usually bop me for my arrogance. Then follow the bop with an offering of her own in the form of new knowledge of how she works, or when to step back, or simply a beautiful “weed.”

Like this dandelion wisher joining the melon blossom and onion seed head in a trio of round smiles.
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Where? When?

I was intent on sowing the next crop between the leeks. Black-eyed peas, specifically, since I’m not allowed any more tomatoes (which I still don’t like… I know…) and don’t have access to any more peppers (which are either too hot for me, but grow well for me, or I love to eat, but can’t seem to get a good crop off of…) and it’s not *quite* sweet potato time. Well, and I’d have to dig up the leeks to sow those.

But I can’t actually see the ground between these lovelies. I can if I squat. I can if I really try. But then I figure I’d disturb the little bean roots (or are they technically peas?) when I do start pulling leeks. So… the first sowing went between the onion rows instead.

I do have to wait for these to fall over, right? Are we talking days still? Or weeks yet?

And curing them is a day in the shade or the sunshine before a week in the garage? I’ll need to recheck.

It’s… Wednesday, right?

A few hundred shy.

A quick visit to the garden for greens and rabbit-proof-fence checks with the kids.

A silent passerby in work boots and community shirt.

A dirt pile mountain to climb and a successfully stable barrier.

A friendly, yet reserved, hello.

“If you like onions, I pulled a ton out of a bed I was clearing for a new owner. They’re in the bin.”

– We have a good number already but I won’t argue with more onions.

“They’re right here. These will grow, right? They look like the dried up ones you can buy at (big box store) and they aren’t dry. They’ll be ok for people how I laid them out?”

– *inhales deeply, enjoying fresh onion green smells* They will grow just fine. They might not bulb, or they might, but they’re definitely happy to be green onions.

“Ok, good! I already put some in the plot by the workshop but there were just so many I didn’t want to go to waste so I laid them out nicely, a whole wheel barrow full!, so others could gather as they wanted.”

– They look great and are easy to retrieve and use – thank you for telling me and taking care of them.

After I picked out a few bundles for me, my in-laws, and a friend, and two days passed, I took a picture of how many were still left.

I also saved some chard because beautiful deliciousness.

I’m familiar with foraging but this was my first encounter with foraging plants from a compost heap.

Two weeks under.

Flu is such a short word. Flu. Small. Simple.

Influenza sounding more flora. More weighty. Simply more.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been so under the weather. I lost days to it before losing track of what day it was.

The rain timed itself as keenly as it can this time of year.

Which did nothing to mature the palates of my pests from pea shoots and brassicae greens toward henbit or this star-shaped mystery.

Perhaps next year.

On the fence.

Another freeze is expected tomorrow night. High 20s. Do I cover the green beans again?

Last time the got some burn. They are flowering now. They’ll likely burn, covered, again. And need a bit of time to try and fruit, again.

I got called a softy, again, today. He wasn’t wrong 😉

So I’ll likely cover them, again. And hope, again, for a long enough stretch of warm sunshine for a green bean bite, or three.

At least until the onions arrive and the brassicae transplants demand more space and the green beans surrender.

Rainbow Pico.

Rainbows have hit a new level of glory in our home.

First we had the usual childhood awe, fascination, and adoration of them. Like you do.

Then June came round and for some unknown (to me) reason, this was the year in which much of corporate America felt free, finally, to celebrate Pride month. This added to the rainbow fandom in my house and lead to heartening conversations. When asked by a wee one why there were suddenly rainbows everywhere, I found the answer coming from my mouth before trying to find age-appropriate words: people have decided that rainbows are a way to celebrate love – and that love between any person and any other person is worth being happy about.

From the mouths of babes: then why aren’t there this many rainbows every day? I want to open a year round shop called, “Every Rainbow Every Day” because every love is ok every day.

And so in our house, we celebrate rainbows every day, in every way. Last night’s rainbow?

Yellow pear tomatoes, sun gold tomatoes, black cherry tomatoes, and pink Arkansas traveler tomatoes from the garden with a white onion and green cilantro.

Beautiful disorder.

I remember worrying about tidy rows. Organized rotations. The choreography of organic vegetable gardening.

I know, now, that milkweed and potatoes can be friends with a volunteer squash sidling up.

Or that an asparagus crown doesn’t mind a four-year-old beet over its head with a pin cushion to the side and lettuce and onions all down the bed.

One more week and the garden isn’t mine. I picked a lot of carrots today.

I am crossing my fingers the seeds from the brassicae will be ready by Monday. I will gather them however they are and find out in a few months if they were ready.

I need to research asparagus crowns. Mine started as seeds in the laundry room years ago and I don’t want to upset them through my ignorance during their removal and transport.

Anyone remember when I planted the potatoes, by chance? I think, sadly, they still have a month to go but perhaps you know differently.