Tags
garden, heirloom, leek, local foods, onion, pandemic, raised bed, seed starting, SFG, shallot, spring, vegetables, whole food
What a time to be alive! Amiright?? Seriously, though, who would have guessed we would be trying to make it through a real life PANDEMIC? Pandemic is also a fan-favorite party game, great for isolation. Full disclosure: CFO, myself and the family ALWAYS LOST when we played up at the lake. I try not to dwell on that too much.
In these social distancing times, I am turning towards the garden. I realize my social media presence has been choppy, so I will do my best to stay on top of things. But please don’t put too much faith in that. After all, Monkey is 2 years old now, which is prime time for him to jump off a ledge into a pile of leaves or something. All eyes on the wild child.
I do have a very ambitious garden planned this year, with a priority on preserving the harvest. We invested in a CSA box through Village Farmstead, located just down the street from us, in an effort to ensure fresh, local produce in the trying times of raising a child, and we will continue that this summer.
We begin the year with seeding three varieties of onions (Flat of Italy red, Yellow of Parma, Minnesota Winter bunching), Blue Solaise leeks and Zebrune shallots. I started these little ones in January under grow lights. As they grew, I maintained their manes at ~4 inches, continuously clipping them back. This caused them to produce thicker stems from what I could tell. They are out in the greenhouse now (as long as we stay above freezing), and I will plant out in early April after we top the beds with compost. Additionally, I’ve been feeding these guys fish fertilizer once a month, which is the smelliest, most vile concoction that permeates the whole house with dead fish for about 3 days. Lovely.
