Weeds 19, Me 0

Gardening tip of the day: Don’t leave your onion sets in the garage when the temps get in the high 80s.

I’m not sure what happened, but my red onion sets went nuts over the last week.

Last night, I opened the paper bag to see a bizarre mess of red onion sets with 3-inch long white and yellow sprouts. Yikes. It doesn’t seem natural. So I weeded out my garden, replaced the grass and weeds that overcame my seeds and dropped the strange onion sets in the ground. If those don’t work, we’ll try again with lettuce.

Gardening doesn't seem to come as easily as it used to. It used to be I'd drop in a few plants or onion sets or lettuce seeds, and, boom, they'd just grow. This year, we're coping with a heck of a lot of work, and getting questionable results.

Beans: I clearly remember that I planted three rows of our multicolor beans, but we’re not having much luck. The first batch I’d planted resulted in two – count them, two – bean plants. The second row is faring much better but a few are getting eaten or broken. We’ll see.

Blueberries: Still alive! Though strong winds and rain knocked out about half of our flowers earlier this month, we’ve actually got pea-size (green) berries growing. We’ll see how long they last – our strawberries have already been nibbled on.

Carrots: Those rainbow carrots my daughter was so excited about are not doing so well. Of the two rows I planted, maybe four carrots are appearing (and I’m not sure that they aren’t weeds.)

Garlic: The sprouting organic garlic we planted on a whim in March is doing well. The late arrivals from Pinetree are in the ground; though half are still in the fridge holding out for fall.

Herbs: Those started from seed went nowhere. (Oregano, chives and basil are no-go.) We caved last weekend and bought several oregano and basil plants to join our rosemary plant. A coworker also shared two mint plants, which are now happily potted. We’ll see how they progress.

Lettuce: About half of what I planted actually sprouted. Not sure why.

Leeks: My poor leeks that were doing so well in the peat pellets don’t seem to have survived the real world. We’re down to one lonely leek hiding in the corner of my raised bed.

Onions: Growing like crazy. We’ll see what happens with the freakish red onions with the yellow tails.

Shallots: Sprouting and in the ground. Leftovers were shared.

Strawberries: About 1/8” high in my peat pellets, but the 3-year-old ones in the ground are going like crazy. We harvested our first berries two weeks ago.

Squash: Despite two of my plants literally disappearing the night we planted them(?) the remaining three are actually growing.

Tomatoes: Our plants are faring well overall, though we had two unceremoniously snapped at the base (despite having cages). Thankfully, the Greenwood Farmers Market is selling their heirloom tomatoes at $2 each – much better than what you’ll pay for a “regular” tomato at Lowe’s!

Gardening is certainly a work in progress. Thankfully I have two friendly helpers to keep it going - or, at least, interesting!