Getting closer to nature

20 July 2011

At some point while researching a story, I came across information on companion planting. One of the suggestions from that page was that plants in the Allium family, including onions, are good to plant with fruit trees, because they deter pests. So when we had a couple of onion bulbs destined for the compost bin, I offered to plant them next to the apple trees in our yard.

I don’t know if they are doing any good for the trees—given everything else in our yard, slugs and aphids are the least of their problems—but since I got to see what the flowering stem of an onion looks like, I can’t say the effort was wasted.

• Later: Debt ceiling: the endgame begins
• Earlier: New beta story: “Husbandry”