Sounds like your allium storage is doing pretty well this year Dutch. Mine has been about average. I still have a couple Red Candy and a dozen or so Candy left but they won't last much longer. My purple stripes are storing well but for some reason the porcelains did not. Rocamboles as usual were the first to go south but I dehydrated most of them before that happened.

I still have a dozen or so leeks left in the garden and some fall planted bunching onions. They survived the 19d morning we had the weekend before Thanksgiving.

Sounds like you still have a lot left Dutch, that's awesome.

My Music, Ailsa Craigs, and Cabernet onions all held up, but are just about all gone. I just finished the Music on Thanksgiving, the last of it was showing some greening but no sprouting. The Ailsa Craigs stored 3 months without issue, they are also gone. I still have some baby reds left, storing fine.

I also have some nice leeks out in the garden I need to pull and freeze. I will definitely do that next weekend. They freeze well.

I think you better enjoy this week Dutch because I see some highs in the 20s for you starting next week. I know it could be much worse for you though. I remember back in the early 90s when a bunch of friends and I came up to Minneapolis at Xmas time to go to the Vikings vs. Chiefs game at the old dome. It was -20 the night of the game!

If all the lower it gets is highs in the 20s it will be a mild winter around here. I see that we are headed for a stretch where it might not make it up to freezing at all for a while. That means making ice, and then we all are able to walk on water. I haven't been up to fishing on hard water for a couple of years, but this year I think I will give it another shot. Nothing quite like watching the marks come together on the flasher. The little sticks and the fine lines and then crappies beware!

The old Met Stadium before the HHH Metrodome was open like Packer Stadium in Green Bay is. Then -20 meant -20.

OTOH every year what cold there is gets harder to take...

I hear you Dutch. I think my blood has thinned out considerably since my youth years in Minneapolis. I don't come up there to visit my siblings in any month that has an 'R' in the name.

The new stadium is pretty cool looking. Too bad the Vikes haven't been able to win much in it recently. They got screwed on that 2 point conversion against the Cowboys.

Lakes around here rarely get enough ice to ice fish....not safe. Though there are a lot of hardy fishermen around that will go out in their boats for Trout, Crappie, White bass, and Walleye all winter.

The last couple of years I have not felt up to ice fishing, but I really do miss walking on water... I intend to take it up again this winter.

Most of my garlics are gone, either in cooking or into powder. When I was back in Iowa for the holidays, I saw a trio of my feral garlics that had never had the stalks trimmed off. All three were still well filled out and nice and plump. All at room temperature and much better than my own stock out of the same patch. Since then I have read that the longer the stem one leaves on the bulb the better and longer they store. I don't have all that much planted; so I think I will try leaving longer (perhaps entire) stems on my hardnecks next year, instead of trimming them as close as I have been doing.

I can't imagine growing enough to still have to eat now. That's a mountain of garlic! I can't imagine it makes a difference where you cut the stem, once it is hard and dry.

It was 60F today, and will be in the 40s and stay above freezing next week. I hope my garlics don't get the wrong idea. It was 5F and the ground was frozen solid just a couple days ago.

Had a pleasant surprise this year. Grew a short day Grano type named Phoenix. Short day onions normally don't keep well, but I still have onions that were pulled in May. Beginning to sprout now. Storage consisted of hanging them from rafters in a storage shed. Excessively dry summer and fall may have been contributing factors. They need humidity to sprout.

Hi Peter, There's just me and it has only been about 180 days or so since harvest. If I ate over a hundred garlic bulbs in that time, that would be a whole lot of garlic! I like a lot of garlic in my cooking, but I plant more than that.

I store my garlic dry in the kitchen with temperatures in the 60's. Same for my onions. The multipliers and the Copra onions store real well that way without any sprouters yet and only a couple that have gone soft. The Stuttgarters are all cooked up and I didn't lose any of them. The Green Mountain multipliers have not stored as well as the old fashioned yellow ones in the past, but they seem to be holding up real well this year. The yellow ones always hold up well. The yellow were planted last fall with my garlic and the Green Mountain ones are being held for spring planting.

As for the length of stalk left, I was amazed to see all three of those garlics left with full stalks to still be completely plump, and firm with no sprouting (also stored in a kitchen at room temperature). I have read that stalk length does make a difference; so I intend to put it to the test next summer. There is just me in this big old house, so I have the room to hang garlics, onions, even strings of peppers all over the place (more room to store than to grow actually). My late mother used to braid her onions using twine strings rather than just the dried tops and that may be an answer to strings of hardnecks, if I can figure out how she did it.

Interesting..I've not heard that leaving a longer stem can increase storage. I usually leave about 2-3" on my hardnecks.

I still have 5 Candy onions and maybe a dozen garlic left in my basement. This is the longest that I have had Candy store for me (6.5 months). I dehydrated enough garlic to fill 2 quart mason jars with chips and enough onions to fill one jar.

I am trying Pontiac onions from seed for longer storage this year. They are on day 17 now. I have 2 yogurt tubs of Pontiac, 2 of Red Marble Cipolinni, and 4 of bunching onions.

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Hi Jack,

I am going to try to get my lights set up this week and then start some of the Copra seed. I got a 4 tube 48" fixture last year and didn't get it up then; so that is what I intend to use. OTOH we are forecast for 30s and 40s (above!) this week; so fishing on the hard water may take precedence.

Hi Dutch - I use the 4 tube T8 fixtures and they work very well. I think you have a couple weeks before you need to start the Copra unless you are going to try to plant them out in March. I like about 10-11 weeks from seeding so I started them on New Years eve and plant out around March 11-18. Maybe a little earlier if spring comes on early like last year when I planted them out on March 5.

Dutch, I wonder if perhaps it would serve the same purpose to wait longer before cutting the stem?

Peter, that same thought occurred to me, but I normally don't trim the garlics until the stem is completely dry anyway. I will probably try all three ways: no trim, later trim and longer trim. LOL you all know how this internet is. Just because someone puts it up on a website doesn't make it so! Additionally most things we do as humans can be done a number of different ways, successfully. I keep getting amazed at how many questions have more than one answer.

Jack, good to hear about the 4 tube setups. Years ago I used a pair of 2 bulb 4' shop lights mounted side by side with a pretty decent return. My sister has great success with her lights, and she lowers them right down over the seedlings, raising them as her plants grow; so they never actually touch the bulbs but the tubes are never more than a very few inches above the plants either. Her tomatoes and peppers are real nice and stocky and robust.

I have had pretty good response from peppers, tomatoes, even lettuce and the coles, but I have never started onions inside. I sorta figured if you were starting about now then I would have at least a couple more weeks, just about like you say. I might try early starts on garlics too, provided I still have some cloves that will grow.

Dutch, I do the same as your sister and keep the lights about 1" from the young seedlings. I also use a small oscillating fan to circulate air which helps to keep the plants stocky with thick stems.

My lights are hung from chains on hooks so it is easy to raise them when needed. The only things I start inside from seed are onions, leeks, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, brassicas, and the occasional rosemary plant.

Right now I have 2 dozen mature lettuce plants I have been growing since late November just to scratch my growing itch. We have had quite a few salads from it so far and I need to harvest more this evening. Mature lettuce plants grow better/faster if the lights are 4-5" above the plants.

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Looks like you have some bok choys too. Are those 3 1/2" pots? Looks like they are definitely big enough.

What looks like Bok Choy is actually a lettuce called Rhazes that Johnny's used to offer but I don't see it on their website this year. It is a dark red mini bibb type lettuce. The light green lettuce is Muir. I do believe all of the pots are 3 1/2". I think the earliest started plants are starting to get a bit root bound and I have to water them every other day or they dry out and go limp.

Both are perfect for an indoors salad garden as cut and come again but I won't be growing either of these outdoors this year. Muir grows great and gets huge but has a tendency to bottom rot for me. Rhazes does OK as well but I prefer the Romaine and mini Romaine types like Jericho, Sparx, Dragoon, and Breen.

I think I cut close to a pound of lettuce last night!

I looked up Rhazes and it is a pretty one. Also available apparently from quite a few sources. I tend to get most of my fresh greens from the coles. I dearly love bok choy and Napa. It takes some doing to find many Oriental coles that do well spring planted, but there are some nice ones. Radish bloom spikes (in fact nearly all cole bloom spikes) are also real good if catch them early and I do not see that actual raab can be any better. Of the radish roots, I like the daikons best. Both April Cross and Summer Cross do well for me (if properly thinned) even spring planted. I don't mind a bit of a bite, but both of those daikons tend to be real nice, crisp and mild, perfect to slab out for radish sandwiches. Once the daikons get up you can forget about needing to weed them, and they last a long time under refrigeration, too.

I seldom use pesticides; so I do a lot of munching right there between the rows. I tend to pick varieties that are good that way. I live by myself so I plant to suit myself.