"Practice Resurrection"

I (Reed) read through many publications in any given month, but one of my favorites is Cardus' Comment Magazine. They're amazing exemplars of writing, photography, and thorough thinking. With their permission, I'm reposting a bit from their Fall 2014 Edition. I thought it applied well to the nature of this blog, as many of you can relate to the experiences of this family that patronizes a market in Grand Rapids.

"The Fulton Street Farmer's Market is a hallowed place for our family. For a decade, the market was pretty much our front yard, so we easily fell into almost daily rhythms that incorporated the market. Having moved just a mile away hasn't made much difference: visiting the market is a nonnegotiable liturgy in our house. In fact, if you ever visit the refurbished Fulton Street Market in Grand Rapids, peruse the memorial bricks that line the upper square and look for a brick that simply exhorts, "Practice resurrection." That's ours.

Onion Leaves Tell Their Own Story

We were out counting the leaves on our onion plants this evening. No, we weren't bored and had nothing better to do. We are approaching the summer solstice when we have the longest days of the year here in Minnesota. This is the time when long day onions start their bulb enlargement. The number and size of the leaves on your onions will indicate the size of the onions bulb. 

This is because each leaf produces one ring on the onion. So the more leaves the onion has the more rings it will have and the larger the leaves, the larger the rings. Woohoo, now we are all going to be out counting our onion leaves, as well you should be.

Typically an onion produces a pair of leaves every two weeks during the growing season after it gets established after transplanting, The onion should be fertilized organically every 2-3 weeks. The largest leaf is generally the ninth leaf and this is the time that you want to do your last fertilization as the onions peak nitrogen needs are then. Also the plant is making the transition from is green leafy stage to being a super storage machine.

The perfect number of leaves is a lucky 13 and if the onion produces this many leaves it is usually a sign that the plant is approaching maturity. Not all onions will produce 13 leaves, sometimes 9 to 12 leaves are produced, depending on the conditions. Not to worry if you don't get 13, you can still have some beautiful onions that will keep well and be delicious to eat.

For jumbo onions that break the records at the fair, strive for the lucky 13.

So what number did we get on our onions?  We found some twelves and a few tens, the onion pictured above has eleven leaves (the first is hidden by the second). So things are looking good.

They haven't started to enlarge yet. In a normal year we would have seen some bulb enlargement by now, I think this is because we had to plant them about three weeks late. They are just getting to the mature stage now and enlargement will follow. We would often be harvesting baseball sized onions by now and be well on the way to the slow pitch size. We might not get those huge sizes this year, but I could be wrong as the season has been very good in all other respects. We have weeded well and fertilized with fish several times. Water has been abundant.

Auxin: The Tipping Point. Why Plants Tip Toward the Sun

Have you ever wondered why your plants grow towards the sun?  The credit for this phenomenon is due to Auxin, a plant hormone that elongates the cells furthest from the light.  Auxin is a hormone that reacts when phototropism (Photo-Light, Tropism-movements that respond to external stimuli) occurs.  Auxin is only found on the apex of the plant, causing the top of the plant to tip towards the sun, but not the base of the stem or anywhere else; this is how you differentiate between the effects of wind and the effects of auxin; the former will knock it over throughout the stem, the latter will slightly tip it at the very top of the stem.  Auxins have many other roles in a plant's development such as healing.  Auxin regenerates vascular tissues, which carry water up from the roots to the rest of the plant and phloem which carry the nutrients down.  Auxins take effect on every plant ever to grow, no matter how little you see the results.  Auxins also induce the lateral buds to synthesize ethylene (another plant hormone which ripens the fruit).  Auxins have a part in many plant processes such as root development and flowering.  Special biosynthesized auxins are used as herbicides (Weed killers), or powders used specifically for inducing root growth.

Maybe my (Reed) freshman High school biology course was good for something after all!

The June Solstice is This Week

The June Solstice occurs on Friday, June 21 at 12:04 AM. Did you know this is the longest day of the year and the days begin to shorten after this?

This is a very important event in the plant world as many of the garden and wild plants are day length sensitive. Many of the mile markers of the season in terms of plant development are driven by light.

Many of the greens such as lettuce, spinach and mustard greens want to bolt at this point no matter what size the plants are. Bolting is the process of the plants sending up a see head and is usually accompanied by a bitterness in the plant. We avoid this by planting a second or third crop long about now.

The enlargement of the bulb on long day northern onions is triggered by the long days at the end of June (see post on counting onion leaves). The effect is quite striking as the onions go from the size of my index finger to the size of a baseball or softball in a matter of weeks. The cellular replication rate must be off the charts.

The shear length of the days make plants like corn do double time in growth. That is why plants near the Arctic circle, while they have a short growing season often can grow rapidly, and make a crop in the land of the mid night sun. We often notice that the late full season corn for green chopping for the silo would reach phenomenal heights of 10-12 feet because it was planted late and leveraged those long days.

Tell someone you love, that you enjoyed sharing the longest day with them.