Onions Planted on April 2 This Season

The first of April is usually when I begin planning on putting onions into the garden.  In fact I love placing them in totes which is how I grow onions from year to year with good success.

With cooler but warm enough weather for onions to survive right now was a perfect time to get them into totes.  I even planted some in the ground as well since I had plenty of onion bulbs left.

I purchased about a pound and a half and gave me plenty of onions to fill up my totes very quickly.  I planted twenty onions into each container as I have found this to be the perfect amount for the space that they have.  I have a total of five totes that are being used this season.

I also placed some in the ground which I haven’t done in quite a few years because the totes were more reliable.  I used a small section of the garden that is not surround by a fence and I know animals will not touch these bulbs except maybe for birds.  This is usually not a big problem and I can use screens to protect my onions which is what I do with my totes.

I also tilled the section I needed because the soil was warm enough and dry enough to do so.  The soil back here can get quite compacted and I want to make certain that the soil stays loose enough in order for the onion roots to grow easily.

I also used wood ash for the first row instead of using an organic humus manure mixture.  If anything I think wood ash would be more nutrient rich than anything you get in the store.  I will see if this works better than other mixtures that I buy each season.  The rest of the rows were given regular manure humus mixture.  Below is a photo of wood ash added to the first onion row.

I have some other sprouting occurring indoors as well.  My tomatoes are starting to show as well as my peppers.  They have been growing for about a couple of weeks and with it being sunny over the past week I placed them on the windowsill.

Tomato sprouts.

Now I have two lights available that I can use for the last planting of pumpkins and zucchini.  I usually do them the last day of March, but the first week of April is still enough time for them to grow healthy.  I will do that this Easter weekend.  With all the extra room that I have I will make certain to grow more dill, alyssum, and cilantro.

I have began hardening off my spinach plants this week as well.  The weather has been fair during the day and still too cold for them during the night.  Last night I left them outside all night because the temperature was not going to drop as much as the previous nights.