My onion seedlings are looking good 2 days after planting them in the beds. But they are making me feel just a little stupid. This year, for the first time ever, I didn’t plant the 6 wk old seedlings through a thin layer of alfalfa hay, or even straw. I had dug in about 2 lbs. of alfalfa hay and meal into the beds about a month ago. As the soil in the beds had settled so much, I added a few inches of top soil and just let it lie on top without digging it in. The surfaces of the beds were just bare, dry soil. Noticing no pill bugs, slugs or snails at all, it occurred to me that I really had no purpose in using any mulch.
With our normal rainfall, I have so much organic matter in the soil that it’s going to retain all the water the onions will be likely to need through the winter. I probably won’t have to water the onions in those beds until sometime in April. They’ll likely get more water than they need until then. The primary reason for mulch is water retention, so that you don’t have to water so often. I don’t need to worry about that right now, so why put down a layer of alfalfa mulch?
After the 4-6″ seedlings have been in the ground the first night or two, I’ve always had 2-6 seedlings go completely missing. The pill bugs and slugs eat them to ground level. They almost always grow right back, but I usually replace those that have been damaged.
This year, for the first time ever, there’s not one seedling missing 48 hours after transplanting. There’s not one bit of damage to even one of the seedlings! It finally dawned on me that soil erosion from wind or water just isn’t something I ever have to worry about, and with the rains, water retention in the soil isn’t a concern. What my layer of hay or straw mulch accomplished through the winter and spring was to provide a breeding grounds for my enemies-the slugs and the pill bugs!
When spring comes and the rains are over, I’ll put down the layer of alfalfa hay between the rows for moisture retention. I won’t do that until the first time I need to water them. By then there won’t be nearly as many pill bugs or slugs, because they won’t have been breeding, as usual, under the usual alfalfa layer.
How can I be just now figuring that out after 25 years? Lee
Lee O’Hara is a gardening GENIUS! When I started with his video and implemented the “new” ideas he presented on how to properly plant tomatoes, I thought well, we’ll see. AND BOY HAVE I SEEN! He says “You should get 100+ lbs per plant. Yeah, right, maybe YOU can get that much and just maybe you are exaggerating just a wee Irish bit. Oh boy! Well I got MORE than that and I’M STILL PICKING as of Dec 6th! Just came in from another 31 lb pick. Well, this IS California after all, so all you peeps in less mild climates, I’m so sorry! I planted 6 plants (well, mine are actually TREES now) and to date have yielded almost 700 lbs of the best tasting, juiciest decadent tomatoes one could ask for. Since I already canned 112 jars of to die for marinara from this crop, I’m now left with “what to do with all these now?”. Plenty, I tell you. I have jars of sun dried tomatoes, my neighbors are thrilled, co-workers, friends, relatives, you name them, they got tomatoes from me! And boy will everyone be getting a special Christmas basket with REAL marinara for that cold winter spaghetti fest! All I can say Lee, is THANK YOU so much for your expertise and care! However I STILL hate you! Witness this morning, rain on the way, gotta get those last big tomatoes off the vines, and there I am out in my jammies, robe and slippers freezing my you know what off! Need I say more?
LBB
Barbara Lee
If you scroll down on this blog you will see Barbara’s YouTube… editor [I met this vibrant lady]