Ray W
I have been running my own branch from Joseph’s onion land race for a few years now, getting decent results.
This year I decided to grow about 6000 onions; which is several time more onions than I can keep weeded. The patch is filled with chest high grass, and I went to mow it down so I could get ready to reset the soil for next year. Happily I found that a decent minority of the onions grew up and bulbed up under the canopy of hay. Pictured is a red onion with a 2inch bulb and a thick neck still in the grass it grew among, There are at least a dozen clearly superior onions, but I only have a few pictures, it was work enough with out playing photographer.
With at least a 90% failure rate I figure this selects for onions that can keep up with a carpet of grass seed growing fast, excepting two rows there was zero weeding.
Lowell M
I like to see weeds that high and I love seeing onions keeping up with them.
Oscar D
Agreed. That is incredible. With seeds like that, if you were so inclined, you could stealth garden and no one would have a clue what you were growing.
Ray W
The onions were obvious before the grass over took them. But once that happened…
Maarten F
I love seeing these results, very inspiring to try myself. Although I sometimes worry that in 10 years, the USDA will be investigating this website to find the culprits for all these weedy vegetables taking over the United States lol lol lol.
Ray W
This is just opportunism for what would otherwise simply be a failed crop. I’s hoping to sell a few thousand onions to my community, but seeds are nice too.
Joseph L
I love this!
In my current plant breeding, I am breeding for just this scenario. Plants that can survive with minimal inputs. I mean really minimal.
A number of the “weeds” in my garden and ecosystem were part of the eastern indigenous agricultural system that collapsed about 500 years ago. Yet the plants are still going strong, and migrated across the continent. I hope that 500 years from now, tomatoes will be growing wild in the Rocky Mountains. That’s my current long-term goal for the promiscuous tomato project.
Ray W
I just minutes ago finished getting the onions up and the hay mowed. I’ll have a big bag for eating, and a huge population for going to seed. I like to make very deluxe permaculture micro climates for produce. The garden ha much horse manure, a pallet wind barrier AND irrigation. Wildly artificial ecology. Some day I hope to add some rock features for thermal mass and bean trellises to give it a hedgish vibe. Small intensive places have been dramatically more lucrative for me in market gardening than extensive gardens under current conditions, and those more preppy than prepper crops are the ones being growed with plastic, my chosen rival. But when I whiff a gardening game plan and the garden goes rogue on me, I’m glad to get some seeds that are more prepper than preppy.
Ray W
Right here is the main finalists to try to rest over the winter as seed crops the coming spring. In addition I got about 50 pounds of eating onions too get the fam through winter cooking.
Yeah, I love this. Any crop that can survive despite weed pressure is a crop that can be relied on much more in an emergency. Or even just in a year of unusual weather or months of a busy gardener who doesn’t have time to weed. I totally agree – save those seeds!
