Onions and Lettuce

Bob Andrews, an Upper Chilkat Valley farmer, sent in this tip:

I'm not sure how many people are interested in raising onions, but we use a supplier in Texas (embarrassing to admit that) called Dixondale farms. They have a web site - Dixondalefarms.com, and their product is excellent. They ship onion plants, not onion sets. That way, mature plants are less likely to go to seed. We upper valley folks have been using them for several years, with excellent results. They also ship leek plants. Plants are shipped in bunches of approximately 60, and up to 10 bunches are shipped postage free.

I am tempted. I've been burying onion sets for years. Time to try something new! If anyone is interested in making a group order, give me a call.

My lettuce seedlings are thriving, but right now they are on their own. I have gone south for a week - 360 miles south to Ketchikan where the grass is green! (Not green-er. Our grass is still under feet of snow so there is no current basis for comparison.) This might be the time to confess that I am what Sid Moffat calls a "cowboy" gardener. Kind of rough and ready. I don't baby my plants. Anything too terribly tender really doesn't capture my interest. That being said, it's true that I have geraniums, ivy, begonias, fuchsias, cacti, and spider plants that are 17 years old and still blooming - though I've noticed that the Christmas cacti really ought to be named Thanksgiving or Easter cacti.

I have two rules for houseplants: #1, water infrequently (easier and easier to do as I age) and #2, put them outside, in compost full holes in the ground, in the summer. My Vermont sister taught me rule #2, explaining that she was sure those roots needed to stretch out after a full winter indoors. Made sense to me. It's fun to do and rather guarantees that soil gets changed, and roots trimmed seasonally. Even though I was inspired by a sudden empathy with the inner life of my plants, I am guessing that I was at least briefly channeling a more horticulturally informed guide!