Starting Onions

Here in Zone 7, January is the time for starting onion seeds indoors: two months before the last expected frost. I got mine planted a little over a week ago, and the shoots are already green and unbending towards the sun. (When an onion seed first germinates, its stem is folded over with both ends…

The Rush of Spring Planting

As you may have gathered from my “Digging in the Rain” post, I’m the sort of gardener who thrives under pressure. I love to feel that it’s do or die time, that things absolutely must get done today, or there’ll be no hope of a gardening tomorrow. Maybe this is partly because gardening is overall…

Caring for Seedlings

Well, the seeds I started almost three weeks ago are full-fledged seedlings now. They’re the plant equivalents of toddlers. No longer content to stay where I put them, they’re declaring their newfound independence by straining towards the sun. All of them have true leaves now—not just those run-of-the-mill round or oblong cotyledons that first break…