ONIONS!!!

Onions arrived this morning! White and red onions that totaled 5,000.


So I made my beds and used my "dibble board" to mark the spacing (6" diagonal).


Next I dropped the onions by the holes left by the "dibble board."


Then I came back and pushed them into their place.

2010 Planning Time

This is the time of year that there is finally enough time to sit down and plan out the crops to come. I use a spread sheet, catalogs, and a few websites to get my information together. Johnny's Selected Seeds is a great resource for growing information.



Under each specific variety there is a "Growing Info" tab that lists helpful data for those planning a larger than family size garden. Including seeds per ounce, cultural information, seeds per foot, desired soil temperature for germination, and lots of other important things that make growing these plants much easier.

Bags of greens

Since building my walk-in cooler I have started storing surplus from harvest to test how things react to that climate. I discovered that greens start to dry out with the constant air circulation. The solution for this is large bags from Lowe's which help hold in the moisture.


Each bag holds around 20 lbs.

Bug sighting

I'm no expert in bugs. I have limited knowledge and books on bugs. But I love the challenge of trying to track a new one down. So after I find a new bug, I run to my barn and grab a camera and take a few pictures. Then at the end of the day I spend time trying to track down what kind of buy it is... but this is the second one that has eluded my searches. The first one was this Yellowmargined leaf beetle larvae. So after I get totally frustrated with my untrained searching, I send a picture to Dr. Ian Stocks at Clemson University and the speed at which he identifies them makes me wonder why I tried in the first place. His answer to this latest bug was : This is a stink bug (Pentatomidae)nymph in the subfamily Asopinae, the predatory stinkbugs.

Walk-in Cooler in operation

This is one of the final pictures of my walk-in cooler. It only takes a matter minuets to cool down 40 deg from 70 deg. In my 7'x8' cooler the compressor rarely runs if I'm not in and out of it and the fan runs intermittently just to keep the air moving. All in all a very simple and successful project.



Hopefully over the next few weeks I will provide a step by step with more detailed pictures and information.