The garden project of new raised beds I wrote about previously has progressed a bit more. Earlier this week I was able to get the cinder blocks laid for the second bed. I’ve also put in a call to get a truck load of topsoil that I’ll use to fill these new, taller beds. (I haven’t gotten a call back yet though. I might have to try someone else.)
This second bed though has some things growing in it that I want to pull out and save before filling it higher with soil. Since today was another beautiful spring day I decided to tackle at least part of this job. I focused on the onions.
Last year I planted a lot of onion sets in one of the sections. I harvested quite a few for fresh eating, but like normal for me many didn’t do all that well, producing little more than the tiny bulb the onion set I planted started out as. So essentially I had a fair number of onions already planted this spring. Unfortunately they happened to be in the bed to be overhauled. My goal is to transplant them to another bed in such a way that they can survive the process and grow on throughout the season.
So I tried to dig fairly gently around the onions, seeking to avoid as much root damage as possible. With the sun out, shining bright I decided to also dig a few, then plant them, then go back and dig some more. This was to hopefully keep the sun from drying them out too much. I don’t know if this mattered or not, but it seemed worth doing.
Today’s task also involved preparing a second bed to plant them in. I loosened the soil with a garden fork, but didn’t turn it over. I’m trying to avoid overly disturbing the soil and its host of living organisms that support plant life. I also added some general purpose organic fertilizer and a bit of sulfur since I know from past soil testing that pretty much my whole property is very low on sulfur. It seems like something onions would want.
With the bed prepared it was a simple task to tuck the onions into place and firm the soil down around them a bit.
Finally I scavenged up some material to use as mulch to tuck around the plants and cover the otherwise bare soil with, then watered them in well. I could see that they were already wilting due to moisture loss from the sun and shocks to their system. Hopefully they can settle in and get reestablished. As always, time will tell. Since they were likely to get buried under new soil otherwise I figure I have little to lose in trying to save them.
Studio Snippet
One of my studio tasks today was to planish a few more vessels in preparation for the next batch to finish. Planishing is what I think of as my last course in the raising process. It’s where I determine the final overall form of the piece, carefully working out lumps, bumps, and irregularities.
On a couple of these I have gone ahead and annealed them after the planishing course because I expect to fill them with wax and develop the pieces further with chasing. I want to make sure the metal is in that softened state do to that. If I expect to keep them as simple form pieces, such as ones in my Luminosity series, then I don’t need to anneal them. Those ones are now ready to start the rim making process.
I plan to add a fair number more to this pile before I set about doing all the finishing work. However, I do want them all done in time for the SNAG conference so I can bring them with me. That’s the deadline I’m working toward.
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