tel: 512 280-1192 Thursday, November 19, 2015
Nursery Notes: Fall pottery sale: 25% off all pottery (except
Talavera). Maroon 'Aggie' bluebonnets and regular bluebonnets
$3.29 per six-pack. $2 per 2 ounce scoop of bluebonnet seeds.
Onion sets in stock this week: White Bermuda, southern belle
red, super-sweet 10-15 all in stock: 1 bunch, $4. 2 bunches, $7.
3 bunches, $9. (20 - 30 per bunch.) 50% off Chicory Greens
(Catalogna chicory) just $1 each. These have long dandelion-
like leaves, an asparagus flavor and lots of vitamins. Winter
hours for the nursery: 9 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.
An appreciation of our friend Mick Vann appreared recently
in The Daily Texan. Mick has worked at UT's biological green-
house for over 20 years. Part of his job is to locate plants and
seeds for members of faculty via the internet. 'The world is full
of wackos who are tuned into just a small part of this huge planet
of plants. They hold these first-come-first-serve auctions, and
my job is to track them down.' Daily Texan
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Lucinda's pumpkin hummus: 'The bright-orange color of this
dish makes it a must for Halloween, Thanksgiving and harvest
feasts. It’s rich in pumpkin’s beta-carotenes and fiber, matched
with protein from chickpeas and spiked with chipotle, tangy
lemon and spices.' A Lucinda Hutson recipe: Edible Austin
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How to Chop Wood: with winter arriving (sort of!) here in
Austin and Hays Co., it's time to get some fuel ready for the fire-
place for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season. . . and
Modern Farmer teaches us how it's done. Among their advice:
'Save your back. Keep an arch in your lumbar spine, bend your
knees and use your legs.'
The Pilgrims who came ashore from the Mayflower were serious
gardeners,' writes Michelle Slatalla in Gardenista. 'They had to be.
If their crops failed, they'd have starved.' Here are nine of the
best garden ideas nearly 400 Thanksgivings later: Gardenista
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Central Texas Gardener: Eat your garden and feed the wildlife,
too. Visit a low-water design in outdoor living patios. On Sat. at
4 p.m., Sun. at 9 a.m. KLRU
Top 5 Onions for Austin Area
For many of my friends the arrival of November signals the start
by Chris Winslow
of the deer and wild turkey season. For me, it’s onion planting
time.
While Baker and Oliver hone their hunting skills over at the
ranch in Brackettville, I’m in my backyard planting this season’s
crop. I am often asked about the 'key to success’ with onions, and
I always tell gardeners that they first have to know which variety
is best suited to the area where they live.
Here in central Texas, we plant short-day onions. These grow
during the short days of winter and are ready for harvest when
the days become longer in the spring.
Short day onions mature in roughly 120 days, and you can plant
them from the middle of this month through to late winter. It’s
important to know that the earlier you plant them, the bigger
the onions.
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My top five onion choices for the Hays and Travis counties:
1. Texas 1015y “Super-Sweet” Probably the most popular onion
ion in Texas. The 1015 is globe-shaped, yellow, and can grow
up to 6 inches in diameter. It’s so sweet that it can be eaten like
an apple!
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2. Texas Early White A new, sweet, white onion that just won
the 2012 direct gardening “Green Thumb” award for its flavor,
ease-of-growing, and disease resistance. Matures in 105 days
and is globe shaped. Mature width: 5 inches.
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3. Southern Belle Red A large, globe-shaped, sweet onion that
grows to 4 inches in diameter. It’s the sweetest of the red short
day onions.
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4. White Bermuda A flat, sweet, white onion that grows to 3
to 4 inches. It’s an excellent onion to harvest early for scallions.
This heirloom onion originated in the Canary Islands.
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5. Creole Red A pungent, new red onion that is globe shaped
and reaches 3 to 4 inches across at maturity. A strong flavor
that’s works well for Cajun cooking.
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These onions need a sunny garden location with loose, well-drain-
ed soil. Mixing lots of organic compost with our native soils is
a must.
For fertilizer, they like a lot of phosphate to start. Organic bone
meal (0- 10-0) mixed into the soil before planting work well. As
they start to grow, add a higher nitrogen fertilizer as a top dress.
Blood meal (12-0-0) or Ladybug organic fertilizer (8-2-4) is
very effective.
Plant your onions 1 inch deep and 4 to 6 inches apart. If you like
to harvest green onions early, plant them 2 inches apart and har-
vest every other onion as they grow.
Rows should be at least 8 inches apart so that there are enough
nutrients to go around. Onions like water, so keep up with a reg-
ular watering schedule. (They will not grow in dry soil.) If the
leaves begin to yellow, that’s probably a sign of too much water.
You can harvest your onions in the spring when the tops turn
brown and begin to fall over. This should be somewhere bet-
ween mid-April and mid –May.
Finally, onions are easy to store. My crop from May of this year
is still holding up well in the crisper.Take advantage of the season
and try your hand at being an onion gardener. I know that’s what
I’ll be doing! Happy Gardening everyone.
Please contact newsletter editor Darrel Mayers (pictured above)
with any ideas for articles or interesting links:
internationalrain@yahoo.com (hitting 'reply' to this email won't work) )
Visit the website: Its About Thyme facebook
Visit the nursery: 11726 Manchaca Road, Austin, 78748
