Container vs. Garden-Round 1: Onions

On Monday I did a HUGE weeding of the raised garden bed.  Filled an entire trash can full of weeds and loved every cathartic minute of it.  Just after an energizing jog in the rain I figured "hey! there won't be any mosquitoes out in this downpour...time to WEED!"  I'd been putting off weeding far too long due to this year's terrible mosquito problems.  I would only make it 5 minutes even with bug spray on before I'd have dozens of bites.  So I kind of just gave up and fantasized about creating a perimeter of citronella torches around the garden so I can weed free from fear some day.  But no longer!

So, it was time to do an assessment of the veggies that are done growing.  The peas, beans, broccoli, lettuce, and chard are full-on failures.  They were all decimated by critters (I've seen both bunnies and deer snacking away) before the weeds took hold.

On to the matchup.  There was a clear winner in the onion category, which you will see from this visual...

And as you can see, that winner is Mother Nature.  That stupid wench better be getting a good laugh out of this poor showing.  I got all excited with how quickly the little suckers sprouted and started shooting up happy green onion grass and this is all I get for all my hard work?!?  The garden onions stopped growing sooner but probably has the larger of the onions whereas you can see the container onions still have some greens on top but they're no longer healthy.  I might try a smaller number next year and work on tilling the soil around the onions once a week to see if that helps their ability to expand, but it was pretty disappointing all around.  Screw you mother nature...screw you.  Not a useable onion in the bunch.

Next round: Carrots!