The Poop on Walking Onions

YAY!! The Walking Onions are in!!!

Booo... I haven't dug their bed yet. Dangit. Oh, well, they'll keep for a couple of days as long as I keep them cool...

Walking onions - those heirloom buggers that actually produce bulbs at the TOP of the stems, not the traditional root crops. No Vidalias here - the soil is too alkaline, and sandy to boot. Of course, the winter weather would nosh all over any sweet soft onions anyway.

But walkers - man, have I waited to try to grow these! Non-hybrid, which means that I can save any production and replant without worrying about any silly extra stuff getting in the way of yearly production. Long keepers, too; up to 12 months if harvested and stored correctly. And the best part - this fall I can use whatever comes up as green onions (betcher I'm gonna dehydrate those too); and then when the winter snows hit and they die back, I simply wait til spring when they will pop back out again.

They are called "walking onions" because when the tops fall over with the bulbs attached, they plant themselves where they fall if they are not harvested. So they will 'walk' all over a garden if not maintained.

I DID manage to get one of the pole barns and the main corral raked up yesterday, so I have horse poop in a pile, along with my kitchen compost, right by the garden gate. I soaked it for three hours yesterday. It should be working and getting 'hot' even in the cool weather - lotta green, lotta bug activity, lotta brown material and the manure, mixed together and sopping. So by spring till-in I should have some good water retention as well as nitrogen working. There will be residual calcium, too, from all of those eggshells.

Finally living in a place where one can pile up horse poop without comment and complaint from the neighbors! Of course, once it starts working, the only thing it will smell like is - dirt. I've thought about making those cool little manure animals for decoration and fertilizer, since I have the molds and kiln and all - but 1) I'm selfish about my poop, and 2) I don't think the smell of baking manure would be too - um, inspirational!

Hi to Blondie and Casey, and much love. You guys would love it here! I'd ship the bread but it doesn't have preservatives so it might not hold up well! Guess you'll have to come out to get a taste... grin.