sb country n news-how sweet it is

SB COUNTRY N NEWS-HOW SWEET IT IS

this is a sweet yellow 1015 onion i planted a few years ago in my texas country n garden
the 1015s are the best onions that ive ever planted
this one above is sitting on top of my size 12 foot to get an idea of how big it was

if you take a 1015 onion and bite into it its sweet like a georgia vidalia onion
this 1015 onion is as good as the georgia one
kinda like the football teams texas is as good as georgia
they will be playing in the sweet bowl ie sugar bowl come jan 1st

also when you cut into the 1015 onion it doesnt burn your eyes

since moving here to santa barbara i am having to relearn how to garden in this environment
we are 2 miles inland from the beach and up on the edge of the beginnings of the foothills of the mountains
the climate is warmer and drier than the beach area
there is less moisture from the fog so there are less mildew problems where my garden is located

last year i planted about 5 different onions including some 1015 onions i ordered from dixondale farms in texas
the 1015 onions did better than the ones that i bought locally

the california organic seed company called renees garden seeds had these onions for sale
i looked at the listing
well i said thats my texas 1015s
then i looked where they were grown and it was the dixondale farms where most garden nurseries get their onions from in texas especially austin
so
i went right to the source myself and ordered them online
they appeared a few days later

what i have found from talking to folks is that i cant expect to get a big ole onion like i grew in texas but i can expect to get one half that size
now if i was further inland into warmer climates then i might reach that forefoot size onion

so it is with the garlic i now realize my garlic will be a smaller size no matter how well i grow it

i also learned that we have all these microclimates here because of the ocean and the mountains being so close together that the onions i need are short day onions
most sold here are intermediate day onions
the 1015 onion is a short day onion
so
i ordered two bunches of these short day 1015 onions

in my garden i set aside a 3 ft by 7 ft bed that i prepped for these onions 2-3 months ago
i dug out down 18 inches and did layers of cardboard newspapers compost mulch soil until i reached the top of where i wanted my bed to be
each layer was given a sprinkling of a good organic fertilizer and a soaking of fish emulsion seaweed and molasses
i also added a lot of worm compost from my worm compost towers buried between my beds
i also buried a 3 inch pvc pipe with 3/8 in holes drilled on the lower side then covered it with a drain sleeve
this will be how i water the onions deeply and will add the liquid fertilizer seaweed molasses mixture regularly
i also added a drip line to water the surface area when needed
this was covered up with a layer of newspaper and cardboard to let all that stuff stay moist and breakdown into the richest soil ever

come planting time the cardboard was removed then
following dixondales directions altered some to fit my bed i planted these onions 1 inch deep and 4 inches apart for a total of 85 1015 onions in this 3 ft x 7 ft bed

the two bunches were more than i needed so i will scatter the left over ones throughout my garden and the school garden and my sons garden and will give some to the community garden to plant

so here is the final look to my main bed
the brown round cap at the bottom is the cover to my buried pvc
the square concrete block on the right of the picture sits on my 5 gal bucket worm tower

heres hoping all this work will give me some onion chimes come the late spring like in these pictures from the texas country n garden


the organicgreen doctor