• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Gardening Basics
    • Home Garden Tips
    • Month-by-Month Gardening Tips
    • Seed Starting
    • Compost and Fertilizer
    • Butterfly Gardens
    • Tools & Equipment
  • Raised Bed Gardens
  • Plants
    • Plant Profiles
    • Herbs
    • Fruit
    • Vegetables
    • Flowers
    • House Plants
    • Trees and Shrubs
  • Pests, Weed & Problems
    • Plant Diseases
    • Weeds & Invasive Plants
  • Birds and Wildlife
  • About
    • Books & Classes
      • Books for Christian Herbalists
      • Herbalism Classes
      • Books by Jeanne Grunert
    • Privacy Policy

Can You Really Get Too Much Rain? Part II

July 15, 2013 by Jeanne

Vegetable garden yesterday.

In a word: YES.  You can get too much rain.

I went outside yesterday to harvest the organic onions. I grew yellow skin onions this year.  I’d picked a test one last week and it was delicious – perfect round shape, great taste, not a single sign of bug damage. The four spring root crops are ready for harvest now: beets, onions, garlic and potatoes.  I’d gotten the garlic off to a good start on the drying racks in the garage. Now it was time for the onions.

I took my harvest basket out to the garden and prepared to pull the onions from the bed. I could see the tops of them; baseball sized, perfect. I pulled the flopped, tall stems, green turning brown, another signal that the onions are ready.

And guess what?  The squishy stem pulled right off in my hand. Curious and slightly panicked, I reached into the soil with my bare fingers to touch the top of the onion. And it squished into a blob of stinky onion goo.

Yuck! I couldn’t wipe my fingers on the grass fast enough.

Quickly, I started pulling as many onions as I could salvage. I pulled about six before stopping. Tonight, when the sun moves away from the vegetable garden, I’ll return with a trowel and see what can be salvaged.

The beets and garlic seemed to survive almost 10 days straight of rain showers, but the onions may not have survived.  As for the potatoes, it’s time to harvest some of the first crop. I’m almost scared to look because nothing – and I mean nothing – stinks worse than rotted potatoes.

Filed Under: How to Garden

Previous Post: « Growing Organic Peaches
Next Post: The Difference Between Home Grown and Store Bought Peaches »

Footer

Pumpkins in the pumpkin patch

October Gardening: Tasks and Tips

October is the time of year for pumpkins, squash, scrunching through piles of fall leaves, and enjoying the last of the lovely weather before winter sets in. Here in Virginia, October can go either way — sometimes it stays warm, and sometimes the first frosts move in and finish off the summer vegetables. At this…

Read More

A head of bok choy growing in my garden.

How to Grow Bok Choy

I learned how to grow bok choy through trial and error. Last fall, I noticed some beautiful heads of Chinese cabbage (napa cabbage) at our local farmer’s market. When I asked the proprietor where it was grown, I found it was grown not five miles from my house! Well, that means I could grow all…

Read More

A bench with a zinc pail filled with apples. On the bench, squash, apples, and gardening tools

September Gardening: Tasks & Tips

Fall is the time for mums, for pumpkins, and another round of pansies — for soft golden twilights and leaves crunching underfoot. September is the last month here in zones 6 and 7 when the garden is still lush and full. We’re harvesting the last of the tomatoes here at Seven Oaks, my farm near…

Read More

An assassin bug, blending into the roadway

Assassin Bugs – Scary Looking, But Beneficial Insects

We meet the strangest neighbors while walking the dog. This assassin bug was strolling across the pavement on a hot summer’s evening when we walked our dog. At first, I thought it was a wolf spider, but the leg arrangement, plus the narrower body, made me decide to snap a picture and use Google Lens…

Read More

  • About
  • Plant a Row for the Hungry
  • Awards
  • Privacy Policy

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Substack
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2026 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme