Tuesday 9 June 2009

Onions and storms

This 'ere is an onion. Well you would know this of course! Only I wanted to show this one because it is just about ready to be pulled up.

Or is it. Because Head Gardener Lester is dithering about doing so. For months these onions have been growing. Planted last November, they have been watched over, inspected every day, and worried about. Only most of them decided to sprout flower heads which they aren't supposed to do because it reduces their helpfulness towards providing us with food-table fodder.

The flower stem uses up all the onion bulb, or in other words, the onion puts all its effort into putting up a flower head which leaves the bulb small and virtually unusable.

Of course the plant is only doing its best for its future productivity. It is supposed to be carrying itself forward to the next generation and it is not going to be able to do that if it makes a nice fat bulb which is going to be eaten to make our food taste nice. So, the onions choice is: make a flower and provide a future generation, or make a fat, juicy bulb for the food table.

If I was an onion, I know what option I would choose!

And HG, bless him, in our veg plot, reviewing the situation.

Any day now he will march out to the plot and do the deed. But not quite for the moment. It is still nice to review a well filled veg plot. Soon it will become all emptied out as the onions and potatoes are harvested. Then we will have to start all over again with another set of crops, and off we go again. Note my red floor-mop bucket to the left of HG, which is proof that he raids my kitchen for various types of utensils when needs must. Bless.





Wow, but there was a hell of a storm last night up in the sky. The curious thing was that at ground level it was quiet, with hardly a breath of air movement. Yet up in the sky there was hellish things going on.





If I had tried to paint this sky it would have looked unreal.











Things I have learnt today: That nature is a powerful animal. That living the caravan life gives opportunities to stand outside on the blackest of nights and photoshoot the sky. That it is best not to disregard the flashes of lightning in the distance because it gives warning that I shouldn't be partaking of such an activity, but fortunately Hubs took charge and cancelled the photoshoot by hauling me inside and off to bed. That onions have a life of their own and that really we are only borrowing them for our own pleasure. That one must not get mad at onions if they decide they do not want to comply with what we demand of them.

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