Harvesting & Planting on the same day

The other day we talked about harvesting our fresh spinach and making a deliciously smooth Cream of Spinach soup.  Today we're going to harvest the remainder of the spinach crop.  The weather has been warming up into the 70's and even hit 80 degrees the other day.  This has encouraged the bugs to come out and it looks like they enjoy eating our spinach at least as much as we do.  It is time to harvest it all and put in another crop.


Beautifully green fresh spinach showing damage from pests

By the time I was finished, we had an entire bucket full of spinach just packed in the bucket.  The photo below was only taken when we were halfway done.  We took it inside and washed it up thoroughly.  Spinach has a propensity to retain sand, grit, and dirt.  I don't like to eat sand, grit and dirt if I can avoid it.  Tricia then cooked it all down and we ate some and froze the rest for later.

Produce Bucket full of fresh-picked spinach.

Now we have some space in the garden to incorporate another crop.  About two weeks ago, I started some Red Creole Onions that I had purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  We love red onions.


Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Red Creole Onions

I watered the onion seeds diligently and before long I had long onion shoots leaping out of the containers.  I've never planted onions before so this is a first for me.  I used a plastic fork to scoop them up out of the container I planted them in.



Separating the onion sprouts

The sprouts seem so fragile.  We'll see how this goes. I dug a trench in the area where I had just harvested the spinach and incorporated some moistened soil.  Benjamin used his fingers to poke holes in the soil and as I dug the onion starts out of the containers, he placed them in the holes he had punched and filled the surrounding area with soil.



Close up shot of a newly planted Red Creole Onion

Finally, just about at the point when my back could take no more, we reached the end and our job was completed.  That night we received 2 1/2 inches of rain, so we'll see how our onions were affected in a few days.  Hopefully all will be well, despite the rain, and we will have some red onions to harvest in July!


Red Onion starts all set in the row