And THAT is how baby onions are made! (At least in my garden!)

  My gardening is done mainly in boxes since the voles made their unwanted appearance on the hillside.  Those rascals are not helpful at all!  Sure they dig the ground until it is nice and soft but, at the same time, they nibble any roots that get in their way.  Then at night, the critters take over the garden and strip it of most everything.  The boxes help tremendously in my battle against the critters but I admit that I was not sure just how well container gardening would work for me.  I was accustomed to digging in the ground.

  This year, Mark came home with some onion sets so I designated a box just for a trial.  If this worked, I would not buy onions again!  (For those who do not know, onion sets are tiny bulbs of onions that are planted to make more.  You just "set" them in the ground and they grow!  Ok...I know.  That is not exactly why the term is used but it sounded good.)  I planted the sets and hoped for the best.  The onions grew!  Determined not to "use up" my first crop, I let them multiply instead of harvesting the bulbs.  Yesterday, I noticed that the onions were blooming.  The multiflowered heads were a gorgeous sight to someone wanting seeds.  Then I noticed that instead of seeds, there were little onion plants growing as sideshoots of the blooms.  Good deal!

  Tomorrow (weather permitting), Michael is going to build another planter box to be used as my onion garden.  The current box is too small for the amount that I wish to plant so it will be transformed into a garlic garden.  I use far less garlic than onions.  Pop always used to dry his onions by hanging them in the barn but I suppose that the tool shed or storage building will have to suffice for my drying shed.  (Michael and I decided that the greenhouse might be to damp to do much drying so I guess I will have to commandeer a shed!)

  Growing onions seems to be relatively easy and since they tend to multiply quickly, I should be able have onions year round!  One more thing to cross off the grocery list!