Drought strikes small gardens all across the Midwest!

Nobody knows for sure how long or how bad the drought of 2012 will get before it finally breaks. Currently, over one thousand counties across the United States are affected and have been deemed ‘natural disaster areas’. Some are saying that this should serve as a warning to us all; especially as concerns our rampant manner in which we are adding greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere. Others are saying that it’s either already too late or just nature doing her thing. Take your pick. Either way, all that I know for sure is that my small raised beds have suffered as has my pocket book in paying both for water and air conditioning.

Right now, all the raised beds can be called pretty much a total loss! Not only has the water available to them been stingy, but the heat we’ve all endured has pretty much sounded the death bell for the few straggling plants that remain. Now my focus will be on a fall crop, hoping against hope that by August of September better climates will reign supreme.

At some point it is certain we will end up paying dearly for lost crops, especially commercial plantings like corn. What had already been one of the worst years for this very important crop has now turned into a certified disaster as many farmers across the Midwest are contemplating cutting up what has grown to use as animal folder. The US has also downgraded its estimates of total tonnage and is now waiting for fall to see just how badly we have been hit. What’s for sure will be even faster rising prices for many items that contain corn and even meat and meat related products that will go up due to increases in the cost of feed.

My onion sets did not do well in 2012!

Earlier this year, I bought about fifty mixed red and white onion sets from a local store. These were planted into various sites both in formalized beds and in areas I had cleared of sod. The results in all cases were the same; very little bulb development with a good percentage going to seed.

I fault this lack of growth on a number of factors with soil quality (perhaps surprisingly) not being one of them. Three reasons I feel that good development did not take place were; 1) lack of good consistent moisture, 2) unusually hot temperatures combined with a shorter than normal spring and 3) I failed to get the sets planted the previous fall. Rather they went into the ground in the early spring and didn’t have time to develop good root systems prior to the warm spring and early summer days when they are induced to bulb up.

A representative collection of three onions pictured above tell the story pretty well. The red onion weighed in at 68 grams while the two whites averaged about 38 grams. Sizes ranged from 1 ¾ x 1 ½ inches up to 2 x 1 ¾ inches; not very large, but still usable in salads and such.

Next season, I hope to perform a field test whereby I start equal numbers of onion sets at the same time (this coming October in cold frames). Over time, factors like rainfall and average temperatures will also be recorded. I’m still not sure, at this point what varieties I’ll be experiment with.