Niemela's Market Gardens: How onion seeds are made, and some pictures

One of the things that intrigues me is growing out seed. Some of the reasons for doing so are to break the stranglehold seed companies have over farmers. If they don't have the seed, neither do I. That fact was borne out this spring while trying to order Winterbor kale, which had a seed crop failure, and the seed was very hard to come by, at least in the seed houses I frequent. Ended up using Blue Scotch Curled Kale instead. Another reason is that when you grow out seed, over time it becomes acclimated to your particular area and soil type. And there is also the satisfaction of going full circle, so to speak- the plants you lovingly nurtured run to seed, either the same year of planting (annuals) or the second year (in the case of biennial plants), after which you collect the seed, and save it for next year's planting. Well, while walking by the Evergreen Bunching Onion seed patch, I noticed they were ready to collect and dry down. They started out looking something like this last fall..........

then overwintered, and avoided getting eaten by the hungry deer, or killed by our brutal winter. This spring, they started doing this..........

Then, the other day, I was walking by and noticed they were starting to look like this........

Pods starting to open, getting ready to drop seed.

I thought, time to collect them. So Joshua and I went out and collected the nice looking seed heads.

Some of next year's bunching onions.

Then laid them out to dry down on a rag on top of the old pump organ in the front porch......

After which, when the heads have dried down, I'll rub them between my hands to release the little black seeds, and put them away to be planted next spring. It's kinda neat. Here's some more pictures, in no particular order of importance....

Janice thought he was ugly, I thought he was so ugly he's was kinda cute.

Baby sparrow the kids found, and got some pics of before turning him loose again.


The new herb location.

After having them get so wet, with the ground so heavy where they used to be, they are now safe up on the hill east of the big market garden. If they get too wet in the new location, we have bigger problems than herb plants not doing well. Gonna have a swimming pool in the basement. Maybe the living room too. Not much chance of them getting too wet where they are now. So it's good. :)

Baby lettuce, safe from the grasshoppers.

We had some grasshoppers in the seed-starting greenhouse, and they were scything the baby lettuce off at the stem. No way they can recover when that happens. So, I was thinking we would have to build a raised platform outside, with a cover over so new baby lettuce don't get beat apart by rains. Then, thought, why not put them in the little portable greenhouse? (Thanks, K.H.) Problem solved. Put dirt around the skirting, made sure there were no grasshoppers in there, closed the zippers, and the lettuces were safe. I know the grasshoppers need to eat too, but they can go eat grass. :)