If I was going to order onions to plant now, I'd avoid ordering any short-day types because they won't have long to grow before they begin maturing. Short-day types begin maturing when day length (number of hours of sunlight per day) reaches 10-12 hours, and it is slightly different for each variety. I'd plant either intermediate day length or even a specific couple of the long day-length types. Those two long day-length types from Dixondale that grew well for me last year are Red River and Highlander. Last year I grew all three types, and was harvesting short day-length types in May, intermediate day-length types in June and long day-length types in July. It was as close to an onion-growing season as I've ever had. The Highlander and Red River onions I had in storage didn't start leafing out until late Feb or early March, and some of them haven't sprouted yet and we're still using them.

The worst thing that could happen is the onions won't get as big for you as they would have if you'd planted them earlier.

To keep cats out of the onion beds, I put low tunnel hoops over the bed and cover the hoops with bird netting or deer netting. A couple of our cats just had to test the netting by using it as a hammock, but they tired of that pretty quickly. We hammered lengths of rebar into the ground, cut PVC pipe to make an arch of the height/length we needed, and set up all the hoops first. We put a new hoop every 5' or 6', just eyeballing the distance between hoops. We put the netting over the hoops and attached it to the hoops with zip-ties. At the end of each raised bed, we cut the netting long enough that we could pull it down to the ground and secure it with U-shaped landscape fabric staples.

To weed the onions, I just lift the PVC off the rebar on one side of the bed, do all the weeding on that half of the bed and then put the PVC pipes back over the rebar. Then I go to the other side of the bed and do the same thing. The netting needs to come all the way down to the ground or cats will squeeze under it. I usually leave the hoops on from the time I plant the onions until they've been in the ground a couple of months and are very firmly rooted in. Usually, once the onion plants are larger, the cats leave them alone.

I use low tunnel hoops in the same manner to protect young corn sprouts from crows and young bean plants from cats. For some reason, our cats love to eat bean sprouts, and I get cranky about them eating every bean plant just as soon as it sprouts above ground.

As a bonus, the netting protects our crops from hail stones. I remove the hoops from beds after plants are tall enough to be relatively safe from mischievous cats or when the plants begin to hit the netting and it is impeding their growth.

If you'd rather not use PVC pipe to make your low tunnel hoops, you can use a heavy gauge wire (which is fine if you don't have cats trying to use your low tunnels as hammock, but will collapse if your cats want to nap on the tunnels/cat hammocks) or you can use EMT. To use EMT you will need a pipe bender or tube bender. I have one of the Quick Hoops tube benders that I bought at Lost Creek and will use it to bend EMT to replace my PVC pipe hoops after the PVC breaks, which will happen eventually.

Amy, that was a pretty good idea! I never would have thought of that!

Dawn, one more Q, if I decide to plant squash/zucchini on a raised bed and use row covers, even though the squash bugs won't be able to get the squash, will they still come as a huge unstoppable army and kill my beans, watermelon etc? I'm going to make it to the spring fling this year! I don't have greenhouse to use anymore and I'm hoping to trade seed for plants with anybody willing... :-) Sheri

Hey Sheri, The squash bugs only prey on cucurbits. They might bother watermelon (they don't at my house) but shouldn't bother anything else. If you have something that looks like squash bugs on beans, I suspect you have stink bugs. Stink bugs are difficult to control, but not impossible. My favorite way to control them is to plant sunflowers away from the garden to serve as a trap crop for the stink bugs. I used to put on gloves and hand-pick stink bugs and squash bugs, dropping them into a bowl of soapy water to drown them, but the last couple of years I've used duct tape or lint rollers to pick them up. I just roll the lint roller right over them and after a few are stuck to it, I peel that layer of adhesive off the lint roller, wad it up with the stink bugs inside of it and throw it in the trash. Duct tape is a little more cumbersome to use but also is effective. You also can vacuum up stink bugs and squash bugs with a hand-held vacuum or shop vac. (If your garden is far from an electrical outlet and you don't want to drag around a long outdoor type extension cord, you can use a rechargeable, battery-operated hand vac or shop vac.)

I am glad you're planning on attending the Spring Fling this year.

If you'll make a list of plants you're hoping to find at the Spring Fling, post a list of what you're going to be looking for, and I'll be sure to bring whatever I can to help you check items off that list.

Dawn

Plastic forks....I've used them, too, and in my hanging baskets. I put black forks in there to keep out the squirrels that would like to use THOSE as hammocks :D

See you at the Spring Fling!
Sharon

Yes. Make a list! If we have them, it's easy to pick them up and go go.