Nice Quote & Architecture

Falling Water, Bear Run, Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions." - Thomas Jefferson

Fall Garden - Onions & Garlic

Intermediate Day Length Onion Sampler 

Onions are one of my favorite plants to grow since they're available for picking scallions half the year, take up little space, and are practically pest free.  Although I plant all storage varieties, usually half my onions are grown for bulbs and half for scallions. We have scallions available throughout the winter, spring, and summer.

Although ACES, the Alabama County Extension office, suggests you just grow short day varieties, this year I plan to experiment with some intermediate day length varieties too. Short day onions are triggered into "bulbing" during the short 10-12 hour day lengths of winter while intermediate at 12-14. I'll post back how the intermediate's perform in central Alabama.

 

Garlic

For the last several years, I've just planted garlic cloves from the grocery store and purchased onion sets from the local hardware store (always simply referred to as "yellow" or "white"). Today, I branched out and ordered the short day sampler pack and intermediate day sampler pack. 10 dozen onions of the following varieties should be arriving very soon, I hope:

INTERMEDIATE DAY

• Candy (yellow)
• Super Star (white)
• Red Candy Apple (red of course)

 SHORT DAY

• Texas 1015Y (yellow)
• Contessa (white)
• Hybrid Southern Belle (red)

Detroit Beets

SPACE

Garlic and onion 2"X10" apart.

10 dozen onions = 120 plants = 240" row = 20' row

20 garlic cloves = 40" row = 3.5' row.



COST

The garlic was free since we used leftover cloves from last year's harvest. They've sprouted nicely already. Just today, ordered 10 dozen onions for $14.00 including shipping from Dixondale farms in Texas. Not bad.

Next year, I'll try to track down a nice garlic sampler pack and maybe even some leeks although I've been pretty pleased with the grocery store garlic variety so far.

Grand Rapids Lettuce & Rabbiteye Blueberry

Stem Rot

This disease seems to be spreading across the garden and killing indiscriminately (tomatoes, peppers, beans, ...). The picture below is exactly what it looks like (with tiny orange dots below the ground) and kills the plant completely and quickly. As soon as you notice you have it, the plant is dead, if it's a small plant. A giant productive tomato plant takes a few days to kill. Major bummer.

What's the cause??

Nice Quote and Art

Looking Down Yosemite Valley,California 1865 by Albert Bierstadt onn Display At Birmingham Museum Of Art

"Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, &c. Consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth." - Thomas Jefferson