garden news-ms b in the garden owls and onions

 GARDEN NEWS-MS B IN THE GARDEN OWLS AND ONIONS

ms b feels comfortable in the garden now that she has been coming in here off and on for the last 3 years
she makes herself at home


her favorite if you ask is to stop and chat and feed the chickens
she knows all four of their names
she feeds them kale or bread or swiss chard and like this week she would go around the garden pulling oxalis or sour grass which the chickens love
by doing this she helps weed the garden since the sour grass can take over the garden this time of the year
she didnt know she was weeding the garden

in her kindergarten class she has been studying owls
i am her monitor while she does her online or virtual school 3 days a week and others do the monitoring the other 2 days
yes it takes a village
i feel sorry for the kids who dont have a good support system at home to help them with online classes
i am amazed at how much she has learned so far this year

if you asked her she would say she would rather be in the school for her classes
wouldnt we all want that to be the case
but
we are getting close for that to happen
after this covid year is over


since she was studying owls she wanted to see our new owl box that we put in our garden
it sits in our orchard in front of the  giant pepper tree
we are hoping to attract a owl or two to help keep down our rodent population in the garden 
ie rats mice voles and gophers


ms b and i recently took apart an owl pellet to find what bones were in it
an owl pellet forms when the owl eats the rodent and swallows it into its gizzard
after its all churned up and the nutrition is extracted from the varmint the owl regurgitates the pellet onto the floor of the owl box eventually it will fall to the ground
looking at a guide we determined the owl had eaten a rat
good riddance we both agreed on that

 

this last week we got a shipment of onion plants from dixondale farms in texas
we ordered a mix of short day white and yellow granex and red onions


in this picture i have made holes six inches apart and ms b is dropping in the onion plants
we watered them in with a mixture of fish emulsion and seaweed and molasses to give them a jump start
earlier a few months ago i added a layer of compost and organic fertilizer then forked it into the soil
letting this all sit for a few weeks under a layer of mulch
the soil was dark and rich and moist when we planted the onions

we planted around 80 onions in this 3 ft x 8 ft garden bed

after she planted the onions she then wandered over to where volunteers were getting produce ready for donating to the food kitchens
they had her read the weight on the scales as a practice on reading her numbers

she as usual had a good time in the garden


a few days later i planted around 300 of these onions in this 30 ft bed 
the bed was prepped the same as i prep my own garden bed
these onions should be ready to harvest sometime in late april
the green stalks will fall over telling us its time to harvest them

this will be the third year i have planted these texas onions here in the garden 
they have done well here
they dont get as big as they do in texas
there i would get softball size onions sometimes 
here they are more like big meyer lemon size 

this morning i am adding some of last years crop that we put up in freezer bags into our pot of beans
we chopped them up and placed them in gallon freezer bags

just dont tell these folks here that these onions we plant came from texas 

the organicgreen doctor