I'm just retired...living alone with my 3 furbabies...with lots of free time. I clearly remember being a noob, and the help that was given to 'goober' (your words...lol) me. I was overwhelmed, lost, (couldn't even find my member page, and sure could not find my posts back)....the site just being so big and busy. I enjoy helping some and have made many nice cyber gardening friends as a result. I might add here, that often the emails via Garden Web do not reliably go through, but instead go into cyberspace somewhere. Since both Brett and Kathleen have their setting set up to be reached, you may want to email them privately (non GW) by getting their email addy from the form via the link on their pages. Opps...I see Kathleen put hers in her reply too. Sue

ONe of the most important things in growing big onions is to plant them out real early. Hard to have nice workable soil most springs in Ohio so I use this method. In the fall I till deeply where the onions are going to be in the spring. I till as much rotted leaves in as the ground can take. Then I rake long hills, pulling soil from both sides of hills. Leaving room to walk between hills. During the winter the ground will be frozen and thawed to break down the clods. Come spring these hills will be the first ground to dry out. If I see rain coming about the time to plant the onions, I will cover the hills with plastic. I aim for the first week of April for onion plants. When ready to plant, I knock the hills down with a tiller so that it is about 4 inches tall and 20 plus inches wide. I plant two rows of plants 1 foot apart.At least 6 inches between plants in rows. I then mulch with rotted leaves, make sure to never let them go without water for very long and keep the few weeds out that sneak up through the leaves. Works for me and I ain't going to change until something better comes along. Candy onions get huge with this method for me, anyhow.Where I plant onions the soil is clay type, but years of leaf mold has turned the soil blackish. I am going to try planting in a sandy loam that I have in raised beds this year and see if the oinions get bigger yet.Even if I had sandy loam on flat ground, I would still make hills in the fall so I could plant even earlier in the spring. Geezer

Hi Sharon, I plant them really shallow - the rhizome is just on the surface of the soil, and I bury the roots. I put no mulch over the rhizomes. To keep the new iris steady until they anchor their own roots, I peg the rhizomes down by crossing two pieces of short bamboo staking over them and pushing the bamboo into the soil (essentially an X of bamboo, with the rhizome under the bottom of the X). I leave the bamboo on the rhizome until the following spring (just in case frost heaving is an issue that winter). I don't fertilize them at all; they're just in normal to slightly lean garden soil. I'm liking the shorter varieties more than the tall ones right now, just for the staking issue. Some tall varieties are sturdier than others, though, and it's impossible to tell if they need staking until I grow them. As for the amount of bloom, I'm still figuring that one out. Last year I had poor bloom from all but a few of mine, even though I'd taken good care of them the year before. (I think the previous year's summer weather has a lot to do with their bloom - they like a HOT summer with a good baking, and we had a cool wet summer that year.) I neglected them terribly last summer (a lot of life got in the way). This year, I had GREAT bloom from many irises. Go figure. I do know they don't like compacted soil or having their rhizomes overcrowded - I have some I have to divide and loosen their soil a bit. They like "sharp" drainage. I hope this helps! Laurel 'Owyhee Desert'

Andrea,I agree that it has to be a "man" Thing to never finish anything they start.I was married for over 45 years. lived with the first one for 15 years,and the second one for more then 30 yrs. and the first one never done a thing around the house,and the 2nd one was always starting a project, but, NEVER in all them years ever finish one project, except for a goldfish pool we put in,and Probably the only reason it got finished is because I was outside too, helping to do it.Your place looks so pretty. jean