One Hundred Onions

Today I planted one hundred onions! Well, I planted one hundred onion bulbs anyways.

I put half of these in containers in a very sunny spot, and the other half in my "productive patch" beds. Also in containers, beside the onions, I planted potatoes. My container potatoes far outperformed my in-ground potatoes last year, and were much easier to harvest, not to mention easier on the soil. In order to keep digging to an absolute minimum, potatoes in containers just makes sense! I'll see how the onions do in containers, and take it from there.

I also worked on the design for the rest of the garden. I had great inspiration for the especially shady, spruce stand directly beside the house on the east side that features about 20 spruce trees, their in-soil fungal friends, and absolutely no other plant life: terracing the slope!

I plan to dig the slope in so that it forms little roughly-flat terraces, held together by rotting-wood retaining walls. I'll fill them with composted soil, plant them with uva ursi, some ferns, nannyberry (a shade loving, native north american berry) and whatever other plants are needed to flesh out a thriving shade polyculture. Then I'll mulch with moss. I think this area would also be a great spot to grow edible mushrooms, because it is directly beneath a drain pipe that drips almost all year, and the soil is generally damp.

Another benefit of terracing, especially with rotting wood, is that it will help conserve the water that flows down that slope. Brilliant!

I'll work on the design for that tonight, and hopefully get started in the morning.

Can't wait for tomorrow!