Uncategorized

The grass is always greener…

High mowing suggests trimming onion seedlings when they reach 5" to make them grow thicker and stronger.  We did not remember to trim them while they were growing under the lights, but decided to try a side-by-side comparison with some plants trimmed just after transplanting them in the garden.

Many of our transplanted walla-walla onions were very close to the recommended 5" height for trimming.  I selected a 5×5 grid of the onions (out of the 14×5 grid of walla wallas planted) and trimmed the tops.

Below is a picture ot the allium bed before and after the trimming experiment — rows 3-7 from the back/right edge are the walla walla onions.  Most of the walla wallas near the bottom of this picture were close to 5", so the grid of 5×5 walla wallas on the bottom was selected for the trimming experiment.

Before trimming

After trimming

Close up of one of the walla wallas before and after trimming — the leaf was trimmed from 7" down to a little over 1".

A few of the walla wallas in the 5×5 grid were almost double the height recommended for trimming because they had been seeded a week earlier.  For the sake of uniformity, I trimmed these onions too, but left close to 3" of the onion top as opposed to 1-2" for the smaller ones.  Below is an example of one of the larger walla wallas before and after trimming:

The trimmed onion tops caught up with the untrimmed tops quickly.  By week 4, they were similar in size and it was difficult to tell them apart.

We harvested the onions on July 22.  There still was no strong noticeable difference between the trimmed and untrimmed onions. Both conditions grew well and had good sized onions, but the trimming did not seem to give much, if any, advantage to the onions.

In the fall of 2015, we prepared a proposal to replace the fence and improve the accessibility of the garden. The proposal was developed with guidance from the Town's ADA Self-Evaluation Report on Arlington's public parks and open spaces (prepared by the Institute for Human Centered Design for Arlington's Recreation Department and Park and Recreation Commission).

Our proposal was presented to the Park and Recreation Commission and the Friends of Robbins Farm Park Board in October 2015. The proposal was subsequently included as part of the Robbins Farm Park Field and ADA Renovation Project in the Community Preservation Committee's 2016 Funding Application, approved at the 2016 Town Meeting.

Engineering consultants hired by the Town for the Park Renovation Project are currently developing plans through a series of public meetings. It's our understanding that our garden proposal will be the subject of a separate review of as part of this public process. We hope to begin the work in 2017.

Our Proposal submitted in October 2015 (pdf)
Options submitted with proposal (pdf)

There’s a rule at the garden: all the plants we grow must be edible. You might think this would eliminate flowers. Yet, we grow several plants that (though edible) are most cherished for their blooms.

Flowers attract pollinators, welcome visitors and cheer weary gardeners. And too often we forget to mention them. Here are a few of our favorites.