Rain! and a Little CNG Clarification with Our Onions

Onions exempt from CNG certification

Because we weren’t able to find organic onion sets and instead planted conventionally grown bare-root onion starts, our onions do not meet the appropriately rigorous Certified Naturally Grown standards.  We have grown these onions the same way we grow everything else on our farm.   They were planted into beds amended with organic-approved fertilizer, never treated with fungicide or herbicide, and also not treated with any pesticides.   The only thing we’ve done to the onions is weed them, water them, and watch them grow!  But because the transplants we started with in late February were not grown organically, our onions cannot be classified as Certified Naturally Grown.

We are looking into alternatives for next year.  We may try starting our own onions from seed in late fall.  Onions are one of the few crops that we don’t produce the transplants ourselves, and the only seed-grown crop.  (The others – strawberries, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, are all clones).  We haven’t had much success growing onions from seeds in the past, but its been several years since we tried,  Hopefully our new greenhouse will help.

Be careful what you wish for!

So we got some rain.  And then we got some more.  And a couple more times after that.  We needed the rain, and I am grateful for it, but it always comes with compromises.  It’s too sloppy muddy to dig the carrots, which is why there aren’t any carrots in the shares this week.  Too wet to dig potatoes.  Luckily we had enough potatoes harvested from last week for our mid-week share.  And we should be dried out enough to dig more later in the week.  We are also anxiously waiting for the soil to dry out so we can make beds for the cantaloupe, watermelon, eggplant and squash that are ready to go but waiting in the greenhouse.

Small Shares

• zephyr squash
• zucchini
• cucumber
• heirloom tomatoes
• red potatoes
• red onion (non CNG)

Full shares

• zephyr squash
• zucchini
• cucumber
• chard (Saturday may get kale)
• red potatoes
• yellow onion (non CNG)
• celery
• green pepper