Onions in storage sprouting

I just came in to warm up. I realized my hose bibs needed attention. 5 on the house and 6 in the yard. The pipes are protected but the faucets weren't. I've got 3 more to go and then have to check the pump. I know it will have to run all night. The tenants on either side get their water from me and no telling what will freeze there. They work 10 hour shifts so they'll have to run around in the dark checking their pipes.

The plumbers in the deep south will certainly get off to a prosperous New Year because they'll have all the work they can stand. I bet Lowes and Home Depot have placed overnight orders for plumbing supplies because half the population will be in there sometime this week buying some.

Yeh, that's what we do sometimes...leave a faucet dripping overnite, put a light in the well house, etc. I just came from a friends house and their water pipes froze while I was there! Fortunately by the time I left I turned on a light under their house (next to water lines) and plugged in some heat tape on their well line and halleluyah the water came on. I guess it had an ice blockage somewhere. Glad I caught it so fast, by tomorrow morning it wouldn't been really frozen.

Hoping all ya'lls plants are covered, or protected somehow.

Shoe

Twiggy, I have been outside as well freezing mu buns off, covering plants, faucets etc... even left a small lamp inside one of my raise beds for extra heat.

Shoe I was wondering, I only have a couple of raise beds to worry about when the temps get this low so covering for me is not a problem but how about someone like you that has a lot more to cover up, or any other farmer that has a lot of veggies, how in the world do they protect them from freezing?

Hi all,

I just wanted to jump in here about the onions and say that Johnny's Selected Seeds not only tells you if they are "short" or "long" day types, but even gives a range of latitudes where the variety is most suitable; they have a nice selection of varieties, as well. Also, I've read a number of times that onion seed is only viable for about a year, but had no problem last year with 2-year-old seed sprouting.

A question about drying tomatoes - I've only tried that once and found the skins were extremely tough; do you normally skin them first?

Hope all of you in the frigid south come out okay with at least most of your plants -- Mother Nature is not being very kind to you right now!

Sandy

O.K I just planted my onions but to tell you the truth I am not so sure they are going to make it, I placed the onion plants outside and even though I covered them inside my raise bed, this morning I found that the tops were all wilted, not sure if it got too hot there for the onions or maybe the sock of beign outside. The bulbs seemed to be fine so I decided to take a chance and just planted them in my new onion raise bed, if they don't survive this I'll just have to either buy onion bulbs at Lowes or order some onion starts but I am really hoping that the plants will make it. It seems that the cold spell might be over soon, it is already warming up in the mornings.

carminator...keep the faith my friend...same thing happened to me last spring when I planted some smaller onion sets which I had grown from seed. We had late frosts well into mid-June last season, but somehow they survived and did well throughout the rest of the season. I plan to order my long-day onion sets this year from Irish Eyes (Sort of the northwest coast version of Johnny's) They had some very interesting comments in their catalog on growning onions in the northwest which led me to rethinking my way of planting onions next spring. I do however have one delima and that is when to order. Irish Eyes has a window of time for ordering onion sets, and I want to order early but wasn't certain how to store these sets until I am ready to transplant them in the garden. Any suggestions?

mraider I decided to go to Lowes yesterday and found some really nice onion plants for about $3.50 so I decided to go ahead and buy them, mine were in just pitiful shape so I will leave a couple and see if they take off but will plant this new set today weather permits, they are sweet georgia onions and Farmerdill gives them a good review so to me that says a lot.