The Whistling Gardener

by Steve Smith

Steve Smith is owner of Sunnyside Nursery in Marysville, located at 3915 Sunnyside Blvd., and a respected local expert on all things horticultural. You can reach Steve at 425-334-2002 or by e-mail at info@sunnysidenursery.net.

When is the best time to plant Walla Walla onions?

Onions fall into that class of veggies we refer to as "cool season" plants. Root crops like spuds, onions, radishes, turnips and carrots, and leaf crops like cabbage and lettuce and spinach, and finally peas can all be planted now, even though the soils are still quite cold and there are occasional morning frosts. Most of these can either be planted by seed or transplants, with the exception of potatoes which are only planted by cutting up "seed potatoes" into smaller pieces that contain "eyes"--the places on a potato that form shoots and grow in the vegetable bin if you don't get around to eating the spuds fast enough. In the case of onions, you can plant them from a packet of seeds, which is fine for green onions, or "sets" which are small onions that will grow into big onions but often want to go to seed, which lessens the quality of the bulb, or by transplants. In my opinion, transplants are by far the best way to go. Here is why.

Transplants of onions like Walla Walla can only be purchased this time of year from garden centers. These plants were sown last fall at the grower so they are well established and ready to hit the road running. Usually there are 60-80 in a bundle, which sounds like a lot, but if you plant them 2 inches apart and start eating every other one after a month or so, by the time they mature in the summer the survivors will be 4 to 6 inches apart. The young ones you eat early are essentially a green onion and they are perfect to coat in Italian salad dressing and throw on the grill for 5 minutes max. The ones you leave in the ground will be ready to eat approximately 4 months after you plant them. When the tops turn brown it is time to harvest. Walla Wallas don't keep well, so eat them up in 30 days if you can or donate the surplus to the food bank.

Why is my flowering plum blooming both white and pink?

Most all trees that are commercially produced are grafted, which means the top portion, known as the scion, is spliced onto a specific root stock which is different than the variety on top. The root stock wants to grow just like the scion and so sometimes it will sprout a limb that, if left unchecked, will grow into a tree and compete (often more aggressively) with the variety on top. When we see a tree that has two different colored blooms it usually is the result of the root stock being allowed to mature along with the scion. This is real obvious with weeping flowering cherries. You can travel through almost any neighborhood and find weeping cherries that have branches that are reaching for the sky (as in not weeping). This is because shoots from beneath the graft (which is usually 4-6 feet above the soil level on weepers) have sprouted and they were never removed. If you have a weeper that is doing this, you need to remove those rogue shoots ASAP and continue to do so every spring for the rest of your life. Think of it as job security.

For more answers to your garden mysteries go to my website at www.sunnysidenursery.net and check out my archived columns from the past 10 years. If you can't find an answer, then email me at info@sunnysidenursery.net and I promise to reply promptly.