Planting onions

We straightened out which key is which today. I went out at 9:30 AM and put in 24 Walla Walla onion seedlings and 24 yellow onion seedlings, interplanted with the pansies, peppers, and mesclun-mix salad greens. I figure if the pansies serve to shade the onions, the mesclun and peppers should too.

The Walla Wallas go from the left side in.

The yellow onions go up the right side.

Closeup of the peppers with onions:


Then I poured more fertilizer on: used up the last of the compost tea, and then some for fish&kelp. Between yesterday and today, I've put 5 gallons (2-1/2 cups fish&kelp, 3 qts. compost tea) on the vegetable bed; 1-1/2 gal. each (3/4 c. fish&kelp, 1 pt. compost tea) on the strawberry bed and the herb bed.

As near as I can calculate, our garden needs 45 gallons of water a week. I probably gave it that much Saturday evening. The soil was moist and easy to dig for several inches down today, while being dry in patches just on the surface. With the extra water today, and whatever Jean and Claudia add when they plant their additions tomorrow, I'm not expecting to do another watering until Saturday. I'm going to try to use a much lighter touch Saturday; I think I brought the water down too hard on the pansies and petunias last time.

I'm going to get more compost tea every Saturday, but I need a mister to apply it properly. Pouring it onto the soil is helping the soil texture, but to get the most benefit I also want to soak the leaves, gently.

Here's a closeup of some soil. The soil from the veggie and herb beds is sandy, but at least holds together when pressed in a fist. A handful from the strawberry bed is more sandy; it forms a nice clump when pressed, but falls apart when released. (That's the sample in my hand, and it's too close to the camera to see clearly.)



No sign of slugs yet.