Spreading the love

I'm so happy today! Why am I happy? Because of my onions!

I got some Egyptian walking onion sets from a friend a few years ago. They were an heirloom plant brought by her grandfather to America from Russia (so we know it does well in our frigid climate). She had a whole garden full of them, and offered me a few of her sets. I had no idea what they were or how to plant them.

I actually didn't plant them until the next spring after she gave me the sets, but they took right off. When I made my SFG garden, I dug them out of the ground and put them into some squares. The first year, they didn't really do much. But this year, they started producing the little topsets that give walking onions their name.

I have soooo many of them that I just didn't know what to do. I don't need 1000+ onions next year! So I decided to offer up bagfuls of sets on Freecycle yesterday.

Today I woke up to a ton of emails from people interested in my onions! It makes me so happy to know that I'm sending out this great old onion variety, handed down through the years from family and friends. And it makes me even happier to know that I'm helping people produce food for themselves!

It also makes me happy to think of the pickled onions I'll be making with the leftover sets

Yay! I just used some of mine to make breakfast for the office this week. The extra bulbs are going back to my garden for another year of 'Walkies'!

That is just what I think it is all about. Sharing, learning and teaching. I know I have inspired people by having my garden in the front of the house. I start extra seeds just so I can share with my neighbor gardeners, even the row gardeners.

I even have my 70yr old mom growing her first tom this fall:cheers:

IMHO,
I'd set them in paper bags in the shade at a community place (church, park, store, ball field, school, etc.) and let folks know when & where they can find them, asking that they simply take 1 bag per person.

I'm not paranoid, but we had a neighborhood garage sale one time only to discover a few folks used the event to scout out the neighborhood (I'm grateful nobody broke in to my house, and I only lost my gas grill).

Wow, that's pretty bad, TN. I'm probably lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that our community is pretty quiet. I think there's been one burglary in the surrounding neighborhoods in the five years I've lived here, and that was committed by a family member of the victim, lol.

littlesapphire wrote:Wow, that's pretty bad, TN. I'm probably lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that our community is pretty quiet. I think there's been one burglary in the surrounding neighborhoods in the five years I've lived here, and that was committed by a family member of the victim, lol.

Our neighborhood was similar to what you described (quiet and organized enough for a neighborhood garage sale on a dead end subdivision).

You'll probably be safe and just fine, until you aren't. Not trying to give you the heebie-jeebies, but I would limit my interaction with complete strangers. At the very least, I'd meet them at the gas station or something. I suspect I could pick up the phone right now on CL or Free-cycle and get somebody to tell me their work schedule and when they will and won't be home.

I've done the CL thing and I'm amazed when I hear folks say stuff like..."I can't meet you at that time because I'm working nights next week. What about your husband? It's just me. I'm not married. Could you leave it with the neighbors? Closest neighbor is about half a mile up the street and they are never home."

FWIW, I got friends and family in law enforcement.