tiller newbie notes

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

We put in about 10-12 fifty foot rows of onions and leeks. This year we'll probably have a fifty foot row of shallots. I didn't mention earlier that we have also grown garlic. Pretty darn easy but need a little more TLC to prevent the onion maggot. We keep our pesticides and herbicides to a minimum. Only what is ABSOLUTELY necessary and when we do, we prefer organic methods.

When you buy the young plants, the bundle is supposed to have a hundred plants. They typically have somewhere between 120 and 150 so we have tons of onions. We put in granex (Vidalia onions), white, red, and globe spanish. We typically plant the onions close and pull out "green" onions to get the proper spacing. This past summer we planted them about 8 inches apart and had a phenomenal havest. Most of the onions were somewhere between 3/4 to 1 1/2 pound each!! We had a few that were 2 1/2 pounds each!! Big mammas... We entered three different varieties in our country fair and took blue ribbons on each. All of the judges wanted to know what we did to get them so big. We told them what we did and the just shook their heads.

People come back year after year to our Market Garden stand to get onions and leeks. The just love them. So I guess we're doing something right.

Terry

 

[Bird]

That's quite a garden, Terry. And we plant the onions close together, too, (usually 10-11 bundles) and "thin" them later just as you do. There are a lot of good onions, but the best I've found have been the Vidalia, Walla Walla, and 1015Y, with the 1015Y being the only one of the three that you find around here. Some years, we've also set out some red (well, actually purple) onions. They did just fine, but don't keep as well as the others after harvest.

Patrick, that's some pretty pictures. I'll have to check on some of those recipes.

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

I can remember the varieties we use. My wife is the planner, purchaser, and purveyor. I just execute her desires (with suggestions, of course) /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif.

We get all of our plants from Piedmont (now plantfields <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.plantfields.com>Plantfields</A>. They have a very good selection and grow quality plants. I'll get the exact varieties and pass them along.

Terry

 

[ronjhall]

Bird
The subject of Leeks brings back some good memories. In the spring we would go up to Atlanta Michigan to friends of ours cabin. We would go out into the woods and pick Moral mushrooms. There was also a hillside that was covered with Leeks that had just popped up from the winter snow. Our friends would make a great meal of Moral and Beefsteak mushrooms, with some fresh caught Blue Gills fried in the Leeks. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif My wife and I sure miss the couple that provided this rare opportunity to enjoy some of natures naturally grown delicacies. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Bird]

Terry, that may be a good place to get seeds and plants, but it's definitely not for me; onion sets available 4/2/02?/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif The local places already have them and I'll set mine out early next month. And if the prices I saw on the onion sets are any indication, WOW! Folks around here gripe about the prices at half theirs./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

 

[Bird]

That really does sound good, Ron. I'm quite fond of mushrooms, but never picked my own; wouldn't know a good one from a poisonous one, and don't know whether any good ones even grow wild here. And of course, Blue Gill are great anytime./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

I can understand what your saying about the cost. However, the quality of their product is high. My wife is very frugal and shops around for all of our garden supplies. We have gotten onion bundles locally and they were just horrible. We would generally lose more than half the crop with them. So there are trade-offs. Since you guys are in Texas, you may be closer to some good nurseries and get fresher products.

Regardless, I'll get the varieties and post them.

Terry

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>closer to some good nurseries</font color=blue>

That's probably the big reason. Even way out here in the country, I have a good sized hot house/nursery 3 miles from home, and then a couple of really big ones within 40-50 miles, as well as some smaller ones.

 

[ronjhall]

Bird
I don't know the difference either. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif Our friends would take us to hunt for the Morals. It takes a sharp pair eyes /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif to spot them. They would find 5 to every one I found. /w3tcompact/icons/tongue.gif One of my plans for retirement is to go up to that area again and search for Morals with someone who knows the difference. /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Ron,

The best place to find morels is to look under dead elm trees. We have a few patches on our property and they are typically found under the dead elms. Why I don't really know! But that is the case in our area.

Terry

 

[ronjhall]

Terry
I try to remember that in a couple of years when I retire. I don't think that are many Elm's up around Atlanta Michigan. But there sure are a lot around here. Dutch Elm Disease has just about killed them all. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Ron,

Yes, us too! We have lost some large beautiful trees to dutch elm. If you don't have any patches in your area you can buy some mushroom spawn and "seed" your around your dead elms. May or may not work! If you are successfull, do NOT tell anyone where you grow them. Around here, morel patches are closely guarded secrets as are any other good mushroom patch.

We also have another variety called a shaggy mane. They appear overnight and look like a (excuse the wording couldn't think of anything else) male appendage (creamy white) with rostafarian hair (light tan). Once they open up, you really can't eat them.

Terry

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

Here are the onion varieties we use:

Granex
Mars (red onion)
White spanish
Yellow spanish

Hope this helps. Another issue that my wife brought up was that you need to be careful on the type of onion - long and short day varieties. For Texas, we believe you need a long day variety. Where we live, we can use either.

Terry

 

[fractal]

RPM: I bought it used from the guy who sold me the tractor. He cut me a deal on the tiller cause I didn't argue the price of the tractor after he asked me not to I think we both did ok on the (whole package) deal. Normal price for used 4ft tillers seems to be 700-900 from what I have seen.

Robert: Yeah, the ckickens were back in the garden were in there before I finished the row. Had to chase them out several times. Chickens are not very smart and I could imagine what would happen if one wandered under the tiller when it was running Animals and power equipment just don't mix.

 

[Bird]

Thanks for the information, Terry. I guess I'd better just stay with the Texas 1015Y. We pull them, tie them in bundles of 4 or 5 to a bundle and hang them in the shop. In spite of the heat, we sometimes have onions that last until December. And we've had a fine crop every year except this last year. We didn't have any get bigger than a baseball (and a lot of them no bigger than a golf ball) this past year because the grasshoppers ate the entire tops off of them. I guess if the grasshopper plague isn't over this coming season, I may have to start using some insecticide on the garden; something I haven't done up until now.

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

When we harvest our onions, we wait until the tops are beginning to brown and droop over. We then take a rake and "break" the necks of the onion greens just above the bulb. You don't want to completely snap the neck, just bend it over. This sends a "signal to the plant to seal off the top. We the wait a few days and dig all of them out and begin the drying process. Once the greens have browned a little more we clip off the greens, give the bulbs a haircut (trim the roots), and cure them on big plastic bread trays for a couple of weeks in a cool, dry area. Usually, the basement of our house.

It's then Market time!!

Terry

 

[Bird]

<font color=blue>cure them on big plastic bread trays</font color=blue>

That's quite a coincidence, since that's what I used this past year, since there were no tops to tie them with./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif I used them for potatoes, too, and need to get some more of those trays.

 

[TerryinMD]

Cool - I would like to find some more myself!!

Just to expand a little, what we do is put the trays up off the floor on a set of portable saw horses to get plenty of air circulating under them. If we had the room, I would set out each tray individually to quicken the curing process.

We just lay the potatoes on the ground for a couple of hours and rotate them. We then put them into wooden baskets or crates for storage. Find a nice cool, dark corner of basement and cover them with old sheets to keep out any light.

I have been wanting to build a root cellar for years. Just haven't put it on the radar scope. I need to build a shed/shop and will begin to do that within the next year or so. I will incorporate a root cellar into its design. I've finally decided on a small bank barn design. Sizing is still in question. Final determination will be on the financing.

Terry

 

[Bird]

Terry, do you raise turnips, too? My tractor hadn't been started in nearly two months; still had the finish mower on it, so I did just a little mowing (mostly just to mulch leaves), then I pulled the last of the Fall turnips, put the tiller on, and tilled our garden spot and a neighbor's garden today.

 

[TerryinMD]

Bird,

Those are some BIG turnips. No, we haven't grown any turnips. That's one crop that we haven't experimented with and to be honest, we don't eat them either.

We grow a couple varieties of beets, sometimes some carrots (pain to get the soil just right), collards, kale, swiss chard, halapeno and habenero peppers for my wifes hot pepper jams, lots and lots and lots of basil (one of the main crops for us), bell peppers, mainly roma tomatoes and some beefsteak varieties, snap beans, snowpod peas, fresh dill, sweet potatoes, rhubarb, red raspberries, strawberries, and pickling cucumbers (another main crop). We have some fruit trees but have not had much success with them. Either the frost gets the blossoms or the varmits pick them clean. Did you know that groundhogs climb trees!! We were ready to harvest some beautiful peaches this summer. We went away on vacation for a week and the tree was full and would be ready when we returned. When we got back, every peach was missing. A nice trail to the varments hole. It was history within a day..... /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

This year I would like to try to grow some Chimayo Chiles. Man, they are great. Use to get them when we lived in New Mexico. Yum..... We need to start planning now. We are changing the layout of the garden and will expand it a little. So we need to think it all through plus order what we need for the season.

Terry