The Garden Begins

 Well, honestly, the garlic was planted last fall, so my 2026 garden began then.  But, like most people, I forget that detail and typically consider the garden underway when the first spring plants/seeds go in the ground.

So, for me, the garden began this past weekend, when I planted my onion starts.

After many days of traveling, 5 to be exact, the onion plants I'd ordered back in January for late April/early May shipping arrived. I don't quite understand why the USPS considered the Columbus OH to near Lansing MI route to be Columbus to Detroit, then Detroit to a post office literally 14 miles away from my village post office (and 4 miles from the Lansing hub), then from there to the west edge of Michigan, and from the west edge to Lansing--the middle of the state--then from Lansing to a different post office 7.5 miles from my village post office, then finally to my village post office as the best route for plants shipped priority mail--in the postal service's own box for shipping live plants and marked as such, but that's what they did.  Given that Columbus is literally less than a 4 hour drive from me, 5 days in shipping seems rather excessive.  Who am I to know the most time and fuel efficient way to transport packages though?

Anyway, my baby onions had arrived right during a very rainy spell and it was too wet to plant them right away. And then we had forecasts for two nights below freezing in a row.  So the onions, unboxed and spread out so they could breathe (there were some slimy spots in the bunches by the time they arrived from their meandering trip across Michigan), lived on my dining room table for most of a week.

Highlander and Patterson

Red River and Long Day Sampler

As you can tell by the green tops, they were trying to grow towards the sunlight even without being in the ground yet.  Even so, I was a little concerned that they might dry out too much if I wasn't able to plant them soon.

Finally, at the end of the week, the ground had dried up sufficiently, and the low overnight temperatures had risen to a safer for tender plants zone.  So DH re-tilled the spot (which had been prepped for the onions original expected arrival date) in the garden where I planned to grow them this season, and, with that sufficiently weed-free and fluffy, I got the rows staked out and the onions planted.

And then it rained some more, but not terribly, just enough (I hope) to have given the onions a nice drink and get their roots grabbing into the soil and growing.