Onion Harvest, Greenhouse and Garden

The onions in the greenhouse were starting to get brown leaves, and the plants had fallen over, so pulled them from the loose greenhouse soil.  Some of them made these neat little clusters of bulbs, all attached to each other.  

Some of the bulbs were solitary, and a little larger. 

Tamara said to dry them out if I want to save some bulbs for planting later.  I placed all the onions on a small piece of fence, and stacked it on a straw bale in the greenhouse. 

I covered the onions with a piece of burlap, to block the sun, and I've turned them over a few times to help them dry.  With all this rain, I wasn't sure how to dry them, but it's nice a warm in the greenhouse, so hopefully they will dry out under their shade cover.  

The greenhouse is a jungle of plants gone to seed!  I have straw bales at the ready, so I can smother the plants whenever I'm ready.  I thought I might collect some seeds first. 

I've got radish seeds, 

turnip seeds, 

mustard green seeds, 

and even some dill plants that are about to flower.  

These are rutabaga plants.  I've never grown any before, so I'm not sure how to know when they are ready to harvest.  I guess I need to pull one up and see if there's a rutabaga on it, huh? 

Out in the summer garden, I planted two cherry tomato plants and one Cherokee purple tomato that I bought from Tractor Supply.  After several years of starting plants from seed, and growing nearly thirty plants last year, I was sick of tending to tomatoes and nearly said I was taking a complete break this year.  But then I couldn't resist and planted some anyway! 

The summer garden has several volunteer sunflowers and a cucumber plant.  Plus about fifteen pole beans, grown from seeds I saved from the heirlooms my friend gave me years ago.  It's past time to give them something to climb on, so they are all twisted together in knots.  Also in the garden are over twenty sweet potato plants, and a small strawberry patch near the thorn-less blackberries.  Most of the space inside the fence has grown up in weeds, but the plants that have been mulched with old straw are growing well.  One good thing about all the rainy weather is that I don't have to worry about watering the garden.