tom,

I understand the shade/sun impact. Several years ago some of my garlic beds were startign in shade by 2-3 pm. You could stand back and look at the bed and see the shortest on the left going up for about 8 feet, until you hit full sized ones. It got so bad last year with stuff growing there that I took that last 10 feet and turned it back into lawn. The neighbors Mountain Ash have grown up a bit over the past 5 years. The new edge of my garden starts getting shade by 3-4 now.

What about water? I'm sure you water well, but it has been exceptionally hot and dry the NE area of the US this year. I've mowed my yard once since the end of May. I mowed 5/20 for a family birthday party. Then about 3-4 weeks ago I mowed the front and the back to knock down the 'wildflower' heads!

Keeping the garden watered has been no less than a chore. I'm glad I'm on a well!!

nelz,

i was careful about water. 1" per week. this year i kept track of good rains so i'd know how much water the garden got vs what it needs. i now wonder if i should have watered more but when things go wrong it's easy to start 2nd guessing what you did when at the time you were doing what you thought was proper. as you said, i can see the growth decrease or increase as you move thru the onions relative to the more shade/more sun line.

i was looking at them last night, pitiful! i grow about 55-60 pounds of onions each year and that's just for me so i eat a lot of onions. this year the harvest will be about 25-30 pounds.

each year trees get taller and this shade line goes farther east earlier in the afternoon. need to cut several trees that are about 30' down to 15'. they are a sofwood ornamental cherry that grow fast and have a large canopy vs the hard wood cherry that grows tall with a small canopy. i have cut them and the apple tree before and they grow back. problem is they are getting so tall it's now getting hard to do this w/o a chain saw. i don't have one and don't want to use 1 on a ladder! i want the trees for privacy i just want them to stop blocking the sun at 3 pm. i need to look at pruning or paying to have someone come and cut them back. i don't want to spend $500 or $800 just to have bigger onions!

tom

Tom--I understand exactly what you are going through with the trees growing taller and throwing shade further every year. About 38 years ago I started out in a bare 3 acre field. With help from squirrels and mother nature, I planted trees all over the place. The last few years I have had to close gardens because of shade and tree roots. I keep making new gardens in the sun, but the shade keeps moving into them.The last few winters I spend a lot of energy cutting down the very trees I planted years before so as to give me more sunlight in the gardens. It's either cut these nice trees down or eventually just grow lettuce and radishes in the partial shade.Not ready to quit just yet so cutting trees continues. 4 big pin oaks are going down this winter. I created a jungle and it is haunting me now.My advice to people who are starting out on a bare piece of ground is to visualize those tree seedlings as 50 and 60 foot trees and create gardens with the shade they will throw in mind. Time goes by and they do grow very high. Geezer

Nothing fantastic here for onions, either. Sort of a catch-22 situation. Create a soil with proper drainage and then suffer a drought. Copra and Mars were both miserable for size but they also were a bit down the list for watering. Ailsa Craig was in a heavier soil and did get what I thought was ample watering. Turned out to have been OK except that there were about a dozen with rotten centers. All are now curing as they were done early this year.

Martin

Tom,

PLEASE do not chainsaw on a ladder. I know 2 folks in wheelchairs, and one who has Another option might be to hit the local rental place and see if they have what I call (going back to Dunkin' Donuts) a chainsaw on a stick. It's a telescoping pruning pole, with a chainsaw on the end. Actually not to bad to handle. The throttle trigger is on your end, and it's just a little chainsaw with a 6-8 inch bar.

Dunkin' Donuts, if any remembers them (It's time to make the donuts!) had a donut on a stick. Not sure how I ever connected those, but I did!

geezer, yep i hear ya! it's really a same tho what you describe, such beautiful trees you wanted and now are working against you. you really have to be FAR from trees that are so tall. mine problems are with trees that are just 25-30' tall but they are 5-20' from the west side of the garden! some shade is good in the heat of summer but losing a few hours each day really adds up. i don't want to grow greens in 1/2 the garden and the problem gets worse each year.

nelz, no i'm not even considering using a chain saw especially on a ladder! i have in the past used a ladder with a hand saw designed to cut green wood. it's dangerous, those branches go where they want when they fall. unexpected consequences! i'm going to either hand cut some or just pay someone to cut it all. what i want is 8 to 10 trees cut in 1/2. they grow back and i want the trees for summer privacy so i don't want to cut them out all together. there's other trees but once cut if the others don't give me the privacy i want, well, they're gone. i hate to pay someone hundreds of dollars for this cuz that buys a lot of food say at the farmers market and with a LOT less sweat from me! anyway, it's a problem and if i don't address this i'll have 1/2 the garden in the shade at 2 pm in another couple of years.

just wanted to vent about the low onion yield this year cuz i use so man.... not this year!

tom