Onion Sprouts?

On By StefanieIn Biking, Climate Emergency, Gardening

It’s been a week since I planted my onion seeds in their indoor pots and so far no sprouts. I had a little freak out about it because the water spray bottle I’ve been using was one I had used with soapy water to clean my bike and it still smells of soap. Have I been spraying bad water on the soil all week and killing the seeds? I even tasted the water a few times. While I wouldn’t drink a glass of it, it wasn’t obviously soapy or anything.

How long does it take onion seeds to sprout? The seed packets don’t say. I looked at last year’s garden notes and of course I didn’t write that bit down. So I did some panic internet searching. To my relief, onions take anywhere from 7-14 days to sprout with the longer timeframe having to do with temperature. Since for most of the week I hadn’t bothered to put the seed warming mat under the pots, they’ve been room temperature, which in my house is between 59F/15C and 62F/17C. Yes, we keep our house that cool. We are believers in heating the person and not the space. The internet tells me onions need it to be 54F/12C, so the seeds should be ok.

To be on the safe side though, I dug around and found a different spray bottle that doesn’t smell of soap. Every time I pass by the onion pots I stop and look and then whisper encouraging words. I admit, however, that once I went Army drill sergeant on them and tried out some strong obscenities before slinking away guiltily and then returning a little while later to apologize and ask forgiveness.

After a record warm January and several years in a row of a February that was more like March, this February has decided to be more, well, February. By that I mean it’s really cold—subzero F at night. Days tend to be sunny, which also means really cold. There is snow. And I, and everyone else, am just plain tired of winter monochrome. I long for green leaves against that sunny blue sky. But the green is still a few months away, which makes February the month of endurance. Because, while there will not be green in March either, there will at least be increasingly warmer days.

Saturday James and I had planned to go grocery shopping. But since it was snowing heavily for a couple of hours and our transportation is bicycles, we decided to take a snow day. That means we spent all afternoon on the couch curled up under a blanket reading. James made us hot chocolate, and since there were two cinnamon rolls leftover from the batch James made for breakfast earlier in the week, we ate them with the hot chocolate. It was lovely.

I felt grief-sad when I left work Thursday. I had had a conversation with a friend, who is also a neighbor and a coworker, about the country and climate change. We have been talking about these things for years, preparing ourselves mentally and in other ways for the collapse we knew would come eventually. We both acknowledged it is here and talked about how and what we are doing. It was a good conversation and that is not what made me grief-sad, it actually left me feeling validated that I am not making things up.

What made me grief-sad is the collapse itself. While I think capitalism, neoliberalism, and all the things that go along with it are horrible and I want them to change, I’d rather it wasn’t through collapse. Too many people—human and more-than-human—are bound to get hurt. I might be among them. But because the way our society is run, a planned system and cultural change was never likely to be in the cards. And so here we are, watching as all those cards start to fall. So I was grief-sad over the good things we are losing and the peoples and places who are being hurt in this first big wave.

As I got on my bike to go home, I first thought, don’t be sad. Then I thought, no, I need to be sad, grief is an important part of the process of change. I let myself be sad. But cycling home in the late afternoon sunshine, breathing the cold, fresh air, seeing the deer in the cemetery, and listening to the raucous calls of the mega murder of crows gathering for the night’s roosting, I arrived home feeling calm and good.

Friday night James made popcorn and we watched Monty Don’s garden show and got our green on. Yesterday’s snow day was marvelous. Today I put a new chain on my road bike, sized it perfectly, and snapped the links together without a hitch—a first! I also worked on my attic project, or my craft cave as a coworker has dubbed it. I cleared out some junk, posted some items to give away on my Buy Nothing group, and cut out a few big strips of gross carpet. Little by little.

Reading

  • Essay: Of course it’s a coup by Timothy Snyder. An administrative coup is underway and just because no armed men are storming the capitol to take power, it doesn’t mean a coup is not happening before our eyes.

Listening

  • Podcast: Crazy Town: The House is Quite Literally on Fire: Peter Kalmus on the Climate Emergency Hitting Home. I’ve been following Kalmus on social media for a few years now. He is very good. He lived in Altadena for 14 years and talks about the shock of seeing his old home burn down and his grief for friends and former neighbors who have lost their homes to the fires in Los Angeles. And he puts it all in the frame of climate change.
  • Podcast: Green Dreamer: Martín Prechtel: Relearning languages of land, plants, and place. Prechtel is Native American and a member of the Tzutujil Mayan community in Guatemala. He is also a writer, artist, and teacher. This was a really interesting conversation in which he states at one point that everyone who speaks English has been colonized, that English from its origin was a language of colonization.
  • Podcast: Listening to the Land: Traditional Indigenous Knowledge with Manda Scott and Colin Campbell. The discussion is about how traditional Indigenous knowledge systems can inform us about how we listen to the Land. The key word is inform. No one suggests non-Indigenous people co-opt anyone’s cultural practices. It all comes down to actually being with the Land and listening to what the Land says.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

I think I neglected to mention last week that James made butternut squash chocolate chip muffins for a weekend treat. The recipe was actually for pumpkin but we have eaten all of our garden pumpkin. We still have butternut squash though! A little different flavor, but marvelously scrumptious. As mentioned above, there were homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast one morning this last week and as part of our snow day treat along with from scratch hot chocolate. We also had delicious lentil “eggs” for dinner one evening. And this weekend James made a barbecue chickpea pizza.

18 thoughts on “Onion Sprouts?”

  1. Everyone is writing about baking, and I think I just need to breakdown and bake something. I try to avoid it because I want to watch my sugar intake, but the writing is on the wall, lol.

    Your feelings about what is happening in the U.S. is valid. The interpreting community is white knuckling it because DEI, sometimes known as DEIA, covers Accommodations, which include interpreters. Currently, Indiana is discussing a bill that would take away ASL support staff and replace them with physical and speech therapists, which we already know is not helpful to Deaf children because then they have no language. I’m sending a letter to the politicians who represent me.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Do it Melanie, bake something! You could make something not sweet like biscuits or pita bread even.

      Oh gosh, cutting out accommodations for Deaf folks and forcing kids to work with physical and speech therapists is horrible. You are in the midst of that struggle. I hope your representatives listen to the community and continue to provide support.

      Like

      Reply
  2. Janet's avatar Janet

    I sympathise with you about the onions. We don’t get it nearly as cold as you here in the UK, but I planted onion SETS outdoors before Christmas, covered them with fleece and waited. Each peek I took showed nothing until last week when there were 31 shoots (out of 50). Off came the fleece! Also, to cheer you up, there are 2 English robins in our garden again, not knowing whether to fight or to mate!

    Like

    Reply

  3. so sorry! I’m having tremendous trouble replying on my phone and desktop for some reason. Anyway, I was going to say, James’s kitchen wizardry this week sounds particularly delicious. I am also so sad and angry and scared about everything political/climate related in this country. You’re not alone. Thank you for sharing your emotional experience.

    also: I have lost the Goodreads message that had your address in it. I hadn’t written it down in paper (my bad!) And I don’t have an email address for you either. I wanted to give you my address since I didn’t include it on the postcard I sent. How can I communicate it privately to you?

    this is Laila, by the way, in case my WordPress login won’t work when I try to comment!

    Like

    Reply

    1. Heh, no worries! I will delete the pesky J. 🙂 And thank you, it’s good to know I–we–are not alone!

      As for email, you need to enter an email to leave a comment so as long as it’s correct, I will email you presently.

      Like

      Reply

  4. I hope your litlte onion shoots can rally. I have the same worries about various spray bottles, as well as the backs of the lids for the Mason jars, absorbing things. Finally we found two glass spray bottles to refill and that has alleviated some of the concern (but there are still some plastic bits inside). It was a challenge to find them not made in China (some companies are working to confirm their goods are responsiblly sourced from China and not brushing up against the Uyghur camps there, but not enough). For myself, I am still loving the winter and its peaceful landscape, but I know I’m in the minority and I have been feeling for the critters. We have one pigeon who has been spending extra time in the “hot tub” trying to mend a sore leg, and so I feel badly loving the winter when he’s so clearly NOT loving it. These are hard times, geo-politically, I’m glad you are having some good conversations though: that’s so important. And good couch time with your beloved: also vital. Keep on keeping on. The alternative is unacceptable and you aren’t alone, even if it feels like that sometimes.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks Marcie! Oh, glass spray bottles, not that’s an idea. But they must be really heavy? I hope the pigeon’s leg healed and they are ok. I’m loving hearing about all the Canadian resistance happening, but also alarmed by some pols in Alberta is it? who seem to be allying with Trump? Stay strong neighbor!

      Like

      Reply

      1. No heaveier than a Mason jar (also, not toooooo much bigger, so that might mean a lot of refilling depending how you typically use spray bottles).

        Yes, it’s a generalization of course, but you wouldn’t be far off to imagine Alberta as being like TX in your poli landscape (periodic talk of secession, a sense of superiority resting in the oil production and related income/leverage, and a solid conservative stronghold). Except AB is better equipped to handle snowstorms.

        I thought it was funny that the premier travelled unilaterlly to have private discussions with 47 and then resented the accusations that she was disrupting the unified coalition of other premiers (who were holding firm in trade talks and, later, travelled as a group). Hard (but apparently not impossible) to deny that reality, but you know how it is…don’t let the facts get in the way.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

        1. I only use spray bottles for plant sprouting, cleaning my bike, and my all purpose homemade vinegar cleaning solution. Not sure a glass prayer would be practical for me at this time especially since I don’t want to toss the plastic in the landfill before I can’t use it any longer. But, I’m glad to know the glass bottles exist for future options!

          Imagining Alberta like like Texas puts things in a bit of perspective. Heh, do facts even exist anymore? 😉

          Like

          Reply

  5. Oh I empathise with the onion seeds! For the past four years I have spent weeks gazing hopelessly at black soil in little pots, everything crossed for sprouts to show and nothing happening. Sometimes the little tykes need it quite warm to get going, I find, though in truth I’m thinking of beans and courgettes and sweetcorn and such like. I haven’t tried actual onions. It’s too soon for me to plant seeds but I will be in your position in a month or so.

    I feel your grief. Here, even with a Labour government (and one that signed up to the last climate summit with a whole plan) I begin to see compromises creeping in that will prevent real and genuine progress. We do not live in happy times. And so even more important to do all that we can. You’re so right to write about it, Having the conversation is always a great place to start. And then hot chocolate and cinnamon buns are also excellent for the very necessary consolation!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Haha, well we have early crop potatoes chitting at the moment. Then we pretty much always do green beans, courgettes, tomatoes and sweetcorn. This year as a new departure our friend (who worked as a plant scientist before he retired and has a vastly superior allotment) is growing asparagus from seed and we’ll both plant them and see how they do. If there’s any more energy left, I’ll probably bung in a bit of beetroot. Here at home, I’ll sow basil, mint and coriander. Nothing fancy! Oh and having read your blog with interest, I’m also tempted to try out some beans, but have no idea where to start. Any recommendations??

        Like

        Reply

        1. Oh, I love all veg you are planting! And the herbs too. Good luck with the asparagus from seed. I have some planted from crowns and it’s never done all that well. Of course I am very bad at picking it. I see it coming up and then forget to check every day and then it’s suddenly too big. As for beans, it all depends on what you want to do with them. There are hundreds of varieties and some are better for soup while others are good for baking others are better for shelling before dry. I have a friend in the UK who really likes Borlotti beans and they are really gorgeous red pods on the vine. I have not grown them but they are supposed to be good in Italian and stewed dishes.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

Comments