My Onions are Bolting

Do I Harvest Onions Now When Some Are Bolting?

My onions are not falling over yet so they are not actually ready to be harvested, except if  I want some giant scallions, which is what the look like now.  Giant white and giant red scallions.  But they are beginning to flower which is not a good sign. I suspect that this is the result of the strange mix of hot and cold weather that has been confusing all of here here in the San Fernando Valley. It has been suggested that a different variety of onions perhaps should be planted.  I wouldn't have the faintest idea which varieties would be better or if any other would perform better with these weather fluctations.

 Maybe the flowers will provide me with more seeds for this next year.  I hear that some varieties actually have flowers that have little bulbs.  That would be fun to see.

Fall Planting--Onions and Garlic

It still feels like summer here in Southern California with its hot and dry weather but it is still time to plant stuff for the fall. Today we are planting garlic and onions in some brand new raised beds that Nick must made over the weekend. It doesn't really get cold in this climate but we hope that it will be chilly enough over the winter for the garlic and onions to make a good showing. We also put in a bunch of new tomato plants and hope that they will produce through the fall and perhaps over the winter.  While the greenhouse is quite big there is never enough room for all the plants that we have. The banana plants take up so much of the space that we are considering keeping some of them outdoors for the winter months.

Heads Up

It pays to be optomistic. We have veggies. Take a look at the beauiful lettuce in the raise bed in the picture above. I can't take all the credit. Nick has been working hard and has made the garden work. We have lovely squash and cucumbers. The garden was planted late this year but we can grow al year round in this warm climate so I hope it won't make any difference.

There are lots of tomato plants but few tomatoes. One lone bee wanders through the tomatoes.

Today I used an electric tooth brush to help polinate the tomatoes. Hope it works. Tomatoes need bumble bees to polinate the flowers and the toot brush pretends to be a bumble bee. Hope we were able to fool them.

Still Optomistic

Started the veggie garden late this year. Should have begun weeks before considering the warm climate and the greenhouse. Everything is either in containers or raised bed, which are a form of container. We had a gopher expert trap the gophers and he claims that we have seen the last of the little criters. I certanly hope so.

Started some tomatoes and squash from seed in the greenhouse and they grew quite quickly. The one in the picture above seems to double in size overnight. It's amazing how big the plant has gotten so fast. I don't even know what kind of squash it is. Hope it is a good one. This year I need to pick them when they are small. Last time I had so many and they took up half of the garden and I couldn't even find them until they were huge.

Tomatoes are a problem here in the Southland. We never get good ones here but we still try. Most of out tomatoes in the markets are from Mexico. I have lots of flowers on my tomatoe plants but few tomatoes. I ordered a tomato and vegetable blossom set spray from Burpees's and am looking forward to trying it.

This year I will attempt to grow veggies in the greenhouse. When do I plant seeds for wintering? I would to have tomatoes all year.