Today I picked up three flats of lettuce -- Paris Island Romaine, Red Cross and Buttercruch -- two flats of Premium Crop Broccoli, one flat of Freemont Cauliflower, one flat of Stonehead Cabbage and four flats of Onions.  Two flats of onions are Red Mercury and the other two are Yellow Copra.  Both of these are supposed to be good storage onions.  I have never planted onions from seedlings before so I am curious to see how they will turn out.  

 

A bit of onion trivia.  Normally I have planted onions from onion sets.  I have wondered why they never got really big like the ones you see in the store.  Well, I learned that onions are a biennial plant and that when you plant them from an onion set they are already two years old and their purpose at this point is simply to go to seed which is why the onion part doesn’t get very big.  If you’ve planted onion sets before you know that it doesn’t take long before the tops start to seed out and when that happens the onions stop growing.  When you plant onions from seedlings it is their first year of growth and so they have a chance to get bigger because the first year they only grow and don’t got to seed until the second year!  I thought this was quite fascinating....but then again I am easily amused:-)

 

All in all I now have about 1,650 plants to get out!

 

I also bought my seeds from Jordan Seeds today.  It is always fun to go there.  Of course there were other people there ordering, and so while waiting it was a good time to visit with other farmers and commiserate about the lack of rain and other challenges we are already facing this year, but also a fun time to talk and dream about the good things that are to come!