Thursday, June 23, 2011

Are onion scapes bad for onions?

I noticed buds on some of the red onion bulbs that were planted in spring.  After researching online, I've started wondering if I should pull out the onion plants that are forming these scapes.  A couple of suggestions were to use the plants as green onions, due to the fact that onions will not form well, once the buds develop.  Is that really true?  I planted similar red onion bulbs last year, but don't remember seeing any buds on them.  Also wondering if in the next few weeks all the plants will put out buds?  So far, about 30-40 of the plants out of 200 have these buds.  I'd hate to pull off so many plants at once, because my intention was to get red onions, not green onions!  

If you know what I need to do, please let me know.  For now, I chopped off the stalks, like I did for garlic scapes(and see if they're any good to eat).  The rest of the plant is still in ground .......for now.  Also wondering if in the next few weeks all the plants will put out buds?  So far, about 30-40 of the plants out of 200 have these buds.



In other garden news, these are pictures of deer eaten plants and my newly re-wired fence.  I added 3 additional lines of steel wire on top of the existing fence around several T-posts.  So far, no new damage.  Will the deer get aggressive eventually?  The fence would easily topple if the deer decided to get its weight onto the wires.  But I'm hoping that the sight of so many steel wires will spook it and deter any further attempt to get close to the garden. 


Bell pepper eaten down to its stem

Tomato plant without its top branch (:

Peas halfway eaten.


New wire lines on top of existing fence

4 comments:

  1. I understand your plight. I had unwelcome visitors too. My visitors were groundhogs. They ate my polebeans down to the ground and some leaves my cucumbers. Off to Lowes tomorrow to get chicken wire. We're going to run it 3 - 4 inches down so they won't burrow under.

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  2. Gosh, that's bad! Hope your chickenwire trick works. It should also keep voles out. We've had them burrow tunnels into the garden and eat up carrots and beets last year.

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  3. Ugh, thank goodness we don't have deer. We have other pests like moles, squirrels and rabbits. Did you eat the onion scapes?

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  4. meemsync - Good thing you don't have deer. I find it easier to fence out bunnies than deer (: I have yet to eat the onion scapes, only because I'm not sure whether to add them to fried rice or pasta or just saute it. Maybe I'll just saute it with some seasonings and try that:)

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