I have a nice box of rambutan in the fridge. From Trader Joe’s, if you can believe that
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Was just out preparing for another threatened hard frost - so far it’s only been threats, but tonight looks real. I snipped off a big big bunch of lemon verbena which I will brew now, then strain and chill and drink as iced tisane.
My other herbs are in pots which I moved i to the garage for protection, along with a bunch of pots of lettuce and the flowers I’m still tending.
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Much to my sinuses’ delight (not!) yesterday was spent breaking down most of the remaining plants in the garden.
Lemongrass finally harvested - from 1 stalk picked up at the grocery store
The little bit of ginger I grew - also from market ginger. Not much but fresh young ginger is such a treat
Both the ginger and the lemongrass are amazingly fragrant! But my sinus pays for it by being completely stuffed up afterwards due to my allergies to mold from plant decay.
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Just in time for Halloween!
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This is the first year we’ve been able to harvest our Granny Smith apples. I picked just a few today, and will probably pick a few more next week (not sure how many we really need). I’ve a few Honeycrisp and Fuji apples left in the fridge, so I’m thinking an apple crumble with all three varieties is in my near future.
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Two days ago I sowed some sweet pea seeds. Yesterday I did some lettuce seed.
Today my plans include arugula, chard, collards, and bunch onions, but I’m wondering if I should be seeding directly or planning to transplan tseedlings. I have very little experience with bunching onions.
Next week sugar snap peas, shallots, garlic and potatoes, if the seed potatoes finally get here.
I’m a bit late, but this is my favorite time to garden.
Any updates on fall and winter food gardens?
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We strangely have not had a hard frost in my backyard. It’s up to 75 degrees F in the daytime, but 40-45 degrees F at night, so nothing is really growing. I have some very small lettuce and some herbs, and a few parsnips. Some curly endive that looks mature and less appetizing. Some tiny beets that wouldn’t have any significant root. That’s about it.
The basil is still alive but I don’t crave basil anymore once it’s October. 
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That makes sense!
The lettuce is sown (Some little gem, a few “chef mixes”, one butter leaf).
What I’m sowing today and tomorrow.
These bunching onions are supposed to be ready in 60 days!
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Speaking of onions
“Best onions” lol.
“In the world” — no great onions outside Europe or America 
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Does it help that I am obsessed with “Japanese bunching onions”, aka Allium fistulosum right now?
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Europe and the Americas (including South America) have long focused on bulb-forming onions, shallots and multiplier onions. In Asia, the emphasis was primarily on onions with green tops which don’t form large bulbs. “Brown” onions, as they are often called in China, have become more popular comparatively recently. Most regions have grown leeks since antiquity.
Italians, in particular, bred a remarkable variety of bulb-forming onions. Rossa di Milano is one of my favorites and was reselected by Johnny’s seeds, improving an old variety that was becoming inconsistent.
Bulb-forming onions can be very sensitive to day length. What grows well in one part of a country fails if the latitude tolerance is exceeded. This sort of potential crop failure is avoided with green/bunching onions.
Some of the extremely mild onions, such as the Vidalia, owe their unique, mild flavor to a couple factors: The first is genetic selection. The second is that the soil is which they are grown is unusually low in sulphur.
Allium fistulosum is best done as transplants. The very young seedlings are kind of fragile and you’ll benefit from getting the spacing right without having to thin the plants. I’ve grown several varieties and they can get huge! They start off looking much like scallions, but mine reached a good three feet tall. I needed extra-long plastic bags to store any in the fridge. (Fortunately, our pitcher plant nursery keeps 8 x 40 inch bags in stock to ship tall plants.) A. fistulosum seems to store better in the fridge than scallions, which seem to degrade quickly in the cold and dark. For me, scallions lasted longer with the bases in wet paper towel (jars) in the windowsill.
Even under the summer sun and covered with Agribon insect-proof fabric, the A. fistulosum tolerated the intense heat. The types I grew were Red Beard and Evergreen.
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I love all green onions and scallions, and they are one of the few plants that do well in my soil and zone. Even with our freezing cold, they are so hardy and will bounce right back each spring. For the longest time, my mom had planted tons of an unknown green onion variety that was more similar to what we found in our local Chinese grocery stores. Not a big bulb, and super-fragrant. Those take a few years to start to grow some girth!
I threw a few seeds down for a Japanese variety I wanted to try and I love them. They are much taller and thicker right off the bat (in Japanese the kujo negi variety). I also so far, fairly hearty too. Big plus is that the critters also leave all my scallions alone. Good luck with all your onions!
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I’ve never grown them before and am doing a lot of research, but still don’t understand how the plants present after a few years are related to the original seeds; is the cluster expanding at the base with something like “suckers”?
Have you heard of issues with root maggots?
Is this your “Red Beard”? Striking!
Picture from West Coast seeds
I’ve seen videos showing you how to hill up around the plants, I think to lengthen or straighten or maybe improve the color of the “shank”.
Definitely not an onion expert, so I don’t know if this is true of all onions. In my experience they will naturally split off little baby bulbs/bases and they can become a new plant on its own if you dig them up fully and replant. My mom loved the white bulb and bases, so she always dug them up whole. She gently separated the new baby bulbs and put them back into the soil. I just snip the greens because that’s what I use most often. If you don’t dig them up and split them, they grow fine as a big clump/bunch.
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Yes, that’s the one; although the color is not that brilliant scarlet. It looks like someone played around with the image saturation. Both varieties I grew made offsets at their bases, forming a clump from what started as a single shaft.
I had my plants covered with Agribon insect netting because onion maggots pretty much attack every allium I’ve grown, with the exception of Allium tuberosum, Chinese Chives. Allium fistulosum, being somewhat like a leek, I’d bet the onion maggots would go for them.
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One year Trader Joe’s had dried red dragon fruit. They were so delicious but man, you wouldn’t want to stray far from a bathroom after eating a few. My poor old next door neighbor had a spinal fracture and was on opioids, and said he didn’t like taking them. When asked why, he said “I can’t go potty!” So I went out and bought him a dragon fruit and sent my husband over with it.
I have several plants that wind around and grow all over the place, but not a one of them has ever bloomed, never mind set any fruit.
