Garden Experiments

Remember "Random Acres?"  This was my patch of potatoes and onions that were left in the ground after failing to produce last year, and which seemed to be growing well.

And here's the proof!  Although we have been raiding this patch of last year's onions pretty regularly for onions that look more like leeks (but still taste perfectly yummy), I was finally able to pull a real, full-sized onion.  And let me tell you, it was good:  sweet and really meaty in texture.  I don't think it harmed the baby onion set at all to spend the winter in the ground, although I do think that its survival had more to do with the mild winter and a good layer of mulch than it did with good onion-growing technique.

I know I'm not the only one experimenting.  Several of my friends have started their first square-foot gardens this year, and I love to see the Facebook posts of these darling little 4x4 gardens, so lovingly crafted, with all the care evident in the creation of the frame and the filling with perfect soil.  They are starting to post picture of their first veggies, too, and it is wonderful to see people so gleeful at harvesting a dinner salad from their own garden, perhaps the first food they have ever created for themselves in their lives.

Other friends are experimenting with different ways of being sustainable, and I love to hear tales of batches of freezer jam, homemade chicken stock, and new clothes lines going up in back yards.  I think there is a growing population of those of us taking back our own livelihoods, and I am excited.

So, I want to hear more:  What are you experimenting with this summer that makes your life more sustainable?