Rosie’s Onion Patch

Rosie, the Gardener

This is planting season here in the PNW. Peas have been in the ground since Feb. Lettuce starts are in and it’s a good time to plant onions. Planting has been a bit haphazard this year due to Rosie, being as she thinks it is her responsibility to help. When I dig in a garden bed, she tries to dig next to me. When I shoo her away, she just finds another place to excavate. I think some of those lettuce starts have been planted and dug up 2 or three times.

Last Saturday, I got half the onions planted. I put the remaining onion starts back in the basket and set them on a table outside the back door. I figured they would be fine there overnight. But I forgot about the Gale Warning. Round about midnight, the wind kicked up to 30 knots or so and anything not hammered down went flying. This included my onion starts. They were still tied up with rubber bands into neat little bundles, but those bundles were rolling around the back porch.

When the dogs went out in the morning, Rosie spotted the bundled onion starts and knew instantly that these were the best, new play toys. I walked out a few minutes later and wondered what she was tossing into the air, then I saw the overturned basket and I knew that my future onion crop was in the jaws of my puppy. I did what any panicked gardener would do, I ran towards Rosie yelling, “No, not my onions!”

Rosie reacted like any playful puppy, she flung the little plants skyward with zest. This time the rubber band failed and the bundle broke up. Folks, it was raining Walla Wallas! But not all of them were reaching the ground. Remember that 30 knot wind? It was still blowing. Some of smaller onion starts stayed airborne. Last I saw them they were heading for the daffodil bed or beyond to the neighbor’s place.

Most of the onions hit the ground and Rosie and I scrambled to pick them up. I got most of them, but she grabbed a few and headed for the blackberry bramble around the old stump. Rosie played with her pilfered plants, flinging them around and pretty much burying some of them in the dead leaves and dirt. She wasn’t eating them, so I didn’t barge my way into the sticker bushes. I just let her be and she came out in a few minutes.

Later in the day, we got a good soaking rain, so any onions the pup accidentally planted ought to do just fine. I don’t know, I may clear that bramble out next summer and find a few lovely Walla Walla Sweet onions. Maybe Rosie is going to be a good garden helper…