Surprise

Look what we found on the garden cart - a sprouting red onion. It was hidden under stuff on the garden cart. Yes, this is proof my house is a mess, so please don't judge. But in reality it will let us test a theory... If we plant the onions a second year in a row, will they get bigger?

The hidden onion

I waited till Pooka came home to show her our little friend. She was all amazed we missed one and asked what I expected "Can we replant it?" So we grabbed a shovel and walked out to the back yard and found a nice little corner of the onion bed where some forgotten onions last year had reemerged. This little guy got placed in the corner of the box so I can remember where he came from.

Planted

Pooka has been checking it the last few days to make sure it is continuing to grow. Now to wait and see what happens because it is for science and not just us making sure we don't waste anything... 

What to do

So due to our own fault, the last of the garlic was about done. Now, this may not of been a problem had we left it in the garage or gotten it to the basement like we meant to. Warm kitchen counters are not the best place to store garlic, and this is why we know it our fault.

The end of the garlic

Some of the garlic was not salvageable. Not much, fortunately, but there were a few cloves we just gave up on. The rest had started to sprout. What does one do with garlic that has begun to grow?

The garlic that sprouted

Why plant it of course, I found a small section of the garlic bed that I hope does not have anything already in it, and I randomly placed garlic in it. To do this, I went out when we had a fairly good bit of snow, but the ground was mostly thawed. Pooka didn't want to help since it was rather cold that day. I just did the run out, plant and run back in method. Which is also why it was done randomly because it was too cold to be out there. I did wonder what cars thought of this crazy lady digging in the snow.

Just the place the garlic was put, no pictures of the process

When I ran out of room there, I took a spot in the herb bed. I don't know how that spot will work, but we will try it. It means probably one less herb plant, but I think the experiment of will the garlic grow is worth it. Ideally, this should work perfectly since you can take your largest bulbs and replant them so you never buy more garlic. However, since we put them in late, we are crossing our fingers to see if this works. If it does, it means we have a place for sprouted garlic. Time to let the experiment begin and just wait. 

This set is separate to see how well it does. 

Saving Pooka Seeds

When we got what we call a Pooka tomato, I decided to try to save the seeds. They were very prolific if a tad small, but we had a ton for one little plant. Pooka just wanted to have a tomato named after her, and I figured we may as well try with these than with anything else.

Pooka tomatoes

A search of the interwebs lead us here, to pretty solid directions on how to do this. In two separate batches (a couple weeks apart), we scooped out the inner part of tomato and let it sit in some water on the counter for a few bit. Now, this is probably the nastiest part, and Pooka wanted no part of it after they grew furry (and they are suppose to)

Getting ready to ferment

 Once the seeds had the correct level of nasty, we strained them from the water. Now, this was rather gross, but we did rinse them off while they were in the strainer. It was much better and Pooka was once again interested.

This is post rinsing off.

 Once we thought they were mostly dry, we placed them on a cloth washcloth (I had heard that paper towels tend to stick) and found a very unused corner to let them sit for a couple of weeks to completely dry out.

And now we have seeds

Once they were dry, I packaged them in a small envelope and placed them with the seeds. Pooka wants to see if she can begin growing her own tomato again. I am just hoping they grow at all. We will have to wait and see.

A huge difference

This year we are planting two very different types of peas. The normal sugar snap peas that have yellow flowers. These are the flowers we expect to see, a yellow white flower that is cute but more a sign of food on the way. Pooka told me the other day that she observed the difference between these peas and the blue podded peas.

Picture from last year, See the white/yellow flowers

Imagine our surprise when the purple podded peas started to flower. The plants all have multiple flower colors and they are give a great pop of color. There were pink flowers on some of the plants. Sorry, Pooka just corrected me and told me the flowers are fuchsia. I guess I live in an 8 bit color world.

Pink and purple flowers

There are blueish purple flowers mixed in as well. The bluish flowers seem to be a bit more rare right now. I had a friend over recently and she said asked what pretty flower I had in the pots. She was shocked to learn it was actually a pea plant and said if I hadn't told her better, she would of thought I was just growing flowers. Of course, this friend is starting her own journey into growing food and knew I wouldn't grow flowers unless there was a good reason.

More pea flowers.

There are also some pretty purple flowers of their own. I will say it is nice to have a pop of color out there that will still bring us food in the long run. Here is to having peas in the near future.

Another shot of the pea flowers. Gotta admit they look great

Lady bugs everywhere

Pooka found a surprise in her lady bug houses the other day. We officially had lady bugs. Part of this plan I will admit was to get some good bugs for the yard as well as let Pooka see their life cycle. But of course it was a great thing for her to see them grow up so quickly.

Ladybugs wandering around

The lady bugs were walking all over the inside of their little domes. Pooka loved to sit and watch them, but I told her we didn't have much in the way of food in their for them so we would need to let them go soon. 

Pooka's picture inside the dome

So the day came where I thought the weather would be nice to the lady bugs and really, I wanted to get them out of the garage. We opened the tops of dome to see through there what we could see. 

The domes at the release point

Once we were sure they would be safe outside, we took the two houses out front and released the lady bugs into the front bed. Now I would not be at all surprised if you told me we may of traumatized the silly things getting them out. The picture shows just pulling the glass off the bottom and they fly away. We couldn't get the glass off, so we took off the eye piece at the top and gave the worlds a bit of an earthquake. All the lady bugs got out of their homes and into the front bed. Pooka of course named them all, and told them to get to work saving her herbs. Then she asked when we could order more. Not today, Pooka. Not today

Planting ONions big and small

I swear I posted this before, but I can't seem to find where I did. Weeks ago now, Pooka and I spent about 2 evenings after school getting our onions in the ground. We planted some yellow onions the first day. But they were out of red onions so we had to wait. I was just happy to get them going. I did space them out a bit more then last year in hopes to get a bit bigger onion. Our ones last year were a bit small.

Yellow onions in the ground

2 days later, they finally had red onions in. Daddy loves red onion so we couldn't forget them. This is how I like to buy my onions. I have never had much luck with sets, and these will grow a fairly nice actual onion and in a pinch I can use the greens as well.

Red onions from the nursery

While Pooka and I were out playing in the dirt, Daddy called me in. Apparenly one of our store onions had started to sprout. He wanted to know if we wanted to plant the onion. I said I didn't know if it would get bigger or not and he said "That is okay. We can do this one for science."

Sprouting Onion

I asked Pooka if she wanted to see what happened. I told her it could be its own experiment. Well of course Pooka said yes. I asked her where in the onion bed she wanted to plant it. She said it could go in the exact middle so we remembered which one it was.

New home for the onion

By the time we were done that night, this is what we had. An entire bed of nothing but onions. Hopefully that means we will get lots of nice onions this year. I for one would love to not have to buy onions for awhile.

Onion bed ready to grow.

It has begun

A week ago after school Pooka and I decided to at least get the pea seeds in the ground. Now this year, I didn't start them inside and take them out. We just put the seeds in the dirt. It will be nice in a few weeks when I can send fresh sugar peas and blue peas in the kids lunches for school.

Home of the sugar peas

We started with the regular sugar peas. Those we planted straight into the ground in the front back bed by the deck where we have had peppers and tomatoes the last few years. Upside is that the pea plants will put back some nitrogen for the soil.

Home of the blue peas

Next we planted the new blue podded seeds in the containers. I was trying (maybe ineffectively) to minimize the cross pollination. I know Brother and Pooka really want to try blue peas. The location of the pots will most likely be moved, but at least its started and ready to go. I need to figure out where they will be moved too, and we may plant some watermelon in a blue bin under the peas. I will have to see how things are progressing.

Observing the seeds

Now, to be scientific, I had Pooka stop and observe the difference in the two seeds. I wanted to see if she could find any difference in them and similarities. Pooka ran and got her magnifying glass and got to work. She said the blue peas were "a reddish color, less wrinkley and stayed a bit more round as well a bit bigger." The regular peas were "white and looked squished and wrinkled, and were still a circle." Now we wait to see the begining of the plants.