Facebook

I'm not a huge fan of Facebook. I think it has some great points. For instance, my husband was able to set up a Facebook group a year ago of people that were in his Anatomy and Physiology class. Everyone was able to upload photos, post questions, and discuss class material. It was an awesome tool!
On the other hand, I have gotten totally sick of all of their games and hearing what everyone is doing every second of the day. I don't really care if you're on the way to the store, or what you had for lunch! Don't get me wrong, I was sucked in for a while, then one day I heard myself saying "I don't have time to...." one too many times. What little free time I do get should not be sucked up by the world of Facebook. I started checking my page less and less frequently until one day I got a friend request from an old coworker. For about two seconds I was excited to see that he had gotten married and was doing well. Then....I couldn't think of one single thing to say to him. Nothing.
Waste. Of. Time.
I follow blogs and spend plenty of time on the computer, but to me it's fullfilling. It's my way of relaxing, of being inspired, and of finding and creating homeschool ideas. Everyone has their idea of entertainment, Facebook simply isn't mine.

I recently came across this post by Simply. Organized. Life. and I loved it! She read my mind....

"I no longer hear from someone I once knew in 8th grade about their child’s first poop in the toilet. I am no longer bombarded with Farmville requests, Mafia Wars invites, or unknowingly (and without permission) tagged in someone’s terribly embarrassing photo album from college. I no longer have to be a “fan” of something in order to read an article. I no longer have to watch as people I really don’t know update me with ground-breakingly important status updates like “Going to the mall!” or “Loving these new socks!” or “I hate my haircut.” It’s all a waste of time and I am done with it; I have better things to do with any free time I do have to myself. Want to cut out the clutter and the fat and live simply? Get rid of Facebook. It’s amazing how freeing it is and just how much of your time it takes up."


Click on the above link for her full post.

Favorite Blogs: Early Learning

As many of you know, we have chosen to homeschool our children for many reasons. In my opinion the early years should be for playing, exploring, and experimenting. I use a wide variety of activities in our homeschooling and we have done a few "unit studies" but we really haven't focused on a set curriculum up to this point. I follow a variety of homeschooling and educational blogs, but for this post I decided to focus more on early learning. I'll do another one later with more generalized homeschooling blogs.

Preschool Daze has been one of my all time favorites. She started the blog to let parents in on what their kids do all day at preschool. Obviously some of the activities won't really fit in with homeschooling but most of the things they do can easily be adapted to families or small play groups.


They used old CD's and taped together Popsicle sticks to make this oversized version of tic-tac-toe during "X" week.

Prekinders - Karen posts lots of fun printables for early learning.



What kid doesn't love fishy crackers!?

 

My Montessori Journey includes many activities that would be easily adaptable for trays that so many of you

use in your homeschool setups.



"Shape Pattern Work"

Little Hands, Big Work - They do so many fun activities, it's hard to narrow it down. One of my recent favorites were all of the fun Solar System activites they did together. I plan to start a space unit soon, and I love these magnets!!

There are SO many more I'd love to share, but that's it for today :)

New website....

I just found this website when I was looking for something for the office. I haven't explored it to much yet, but I thought some of you might find it helpful. It was printable templates for planners in lots of different sizes, and also letter templates for just about any situation. You can read the sample letters and then adapt them to your situation. The list is in alphabetical order and it's pretty easy to scan through the titles to find what you're looking for. They specialize in small business needs, but many of their titles would apply to the average household.

4hb is the website. Let me know what you find!

Thank You Notes

I made these fun little thank you cards using the mini alphabet stamps I found a while back. I designed the card on SCAL with a scalloped border. I'm not completely happy with the design yet but it isn't to bad. Then I just used various colors of ink and stamped "Thank you!" and "Thanks!" onto the cards. They are about 3 1/2" so they'll be perfect to send, or to tie on a small gift. 

Please excuse the terrible pictures! I forgot to set my camera to "flower" for closeups. Oops!

"Dafont"

I don't remember where I first heard about dafont but I have been a die hard follower ever since. The website offers thousands of free fonts for download. I can download the font and import them into SCAL for direct use on the Cricut. It has been an awesome way to get new fonts, or to find specific fonts based on my projects. I recently downloaded their "Bubble" font when I needed something resembling marshmallows. 

Keep in mind that their fonts are not designed for use with the Cricut, so not all of their fonts will work well. However, you can also use them to print some of that great subway art that is always floating around blogland!

I have come across the font from Ice Age, and a few other movies.

Smores layout and Etsy Item

I finished up a new layout using a "SMORES" page title and a campfire embellishment I designed and cut with the cricut. If you're interested, you can purchase the title and campfire pieces at Small Town Life

I did not include the lettering that you see in my layouts because they were a huge pain to get right. If you want them, let me know and we can work something out.

And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon

We're still reading nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Bubby has really been enjoying this. I've found numerous books that share traditional nursery rhymes in a nontraditional way :). I already posted about The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster. We have also read And The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon - Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel

Amazon says "Lots of people know the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle Diddle," but has anyone ever thought about what happens each night after it's read? The dish runs away with the spoon, and, presumably, they come back later, otherwise the rhyme couldn't go on without them. But one night, when the dish and spoon take off, they simply don't return! The fiddle-playing cat, laughing dog (who turns out to be quite a grump when he's not playing his part), and the sleepy, moon-hopping cow set out to search for their missing friends. Along the way they encounter Little Boy Blue, the spider from "Little Miss Muffet," Humpty Dumpty's repairman, and a big bad wolf. But will they catch up with the dish and the spoon before the next reading? And can all of them dodge the dangers of an after-hours, fairy-tale world?"

This book is lots of fun for kids and adults, there's plenty of underlying humor. 

Little Red Riding Hood - Andrea Wisnewski

 This is a great rendition of the classic fairy tale. The pictures are charming, and the story of course is well written.

Little Red Riding Hood - Andrea Wisnewski

 

1 2 Buckle My Shoe - Anna Grossnickle Hines

 

I really like this version of 1 2 Buckle My Shoe. Each picture resembles a quilt square with the appropriate number of buttons. Bubby likes to go through and "read" this one on his own.

Tomatillo Salsa

Source

We used this recipe last year but exchanged the tomatillos for tomatoes. The salsa ended up being pretty tart. We added some hot pepper flakes to one of the batches and it was tasty. We have two tomatillo plants this year so I'm hoping to be able to make the real thing this time around. 

Source

Yield: about 2 pints (most likely more)
5 1/2 cups chopped, cored, husked tomatillos (about 2 pounds)
1 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped green chili peppers
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs minced cilantro
2 tsps cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp red pepper
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup lime juice

To can: combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Remember to wear gloves when working with peppers.

Let me know if you make it and what you think!

Rose Hip Jelly



First of all, I'd like to issue a warning. Actually, several warnings.
1) Rose hips grow on wild rose bushes with some of the biggest pokiest thorns I have ever seen
2) Rose hips are basically made up of seeds. You will need LOTS of them to make a good yield
3) Because rose hips are basically seeds, if you use the fruit/veggie strainer on your KitchenAid mixer, you need to drop in about two at a time, if you put in a whole spoon full, you will clog up the strainer with seeds and cause the strainer to explode off the mixer. Trust me.

Wikipedia

So....on to the Jelly. I made this last year for the first time and it was a huge hit. Rose hips are really high in vitamin C making them really good for you, rose hip jelly has lots of sugar making it not so good for you, but whatever. It tastes good.

 2 quarts rose hips

1 1/2 quarts water

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 package Surejell pectin

1/4 tsp butter

3 1/2 cups sugar

6 - 8 ounce canning jars 

1) Rinse the rose hips thoroughly. Cut off the bad ends and discard

2) Put rose hips and 1 1/2 quarts of water in a large sauce pan and boil until they are tender (an hour or more)

At this point you have several options. You need to mash and strain your rose hips. I simply fed them through my KitchenAid, dropping in a few at a time. It was a slow process but better then mashing them by hand.

You will need 3 cups of juice for this recipe. Put your 3 cups of juice into a large pot, add lemon juice and pectin. Bring to a boil and stir until all of the pectin is dissolved. Add in the sugar, and dissolve then add the butter. Bring the mixture up to a hard boil and boil for one minutes. Take the mixture off the heat and pour into your canning jars. Leaving approximately 1/4" head space. Process your jars for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

 Your finish product will be a transparent orange color. Very pretty!

Salsa!

Last year we canned cases and cases of salsa. Some we ate, some we gave away, some is still sitting in our cupboard. We plan to do exactly the same thing this year. The beautiful thing about salsa is that the tomatoes provide enough acid to the mix so you can process jars in a hot water bath instead of a pressure canner. If you are just starting to learn to home can or you need a quick gift, this is a great option. Generally your pot will look something like this, we've obtained two of these used, so keep your eye out at garage sales and thrift stores.

Generally you can find everything you need to make salsa at the grocery store year round. We are trying to grow as many of our ingredients as we can this year. Last year we attempted to grow peppers but our summer was so short they did absolutely nothing! I'm hoping this year will produce a more favorable crop. We used several recipes to try different variations last year. We also made a batch using a recipe that we typically eat fresh and it was fantastic, so if you already have a favorite method, use it!

My mother in law bought us the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving when we started canning and it has been fantastic. It has basic instructions for canning, recipes, and processing times in one place.


Here are our favorites from last year:

Fiesta Salsa This one is my favorite. It has a garden fresh taste that's different from most salsas I've eaten.
Yield: about 4 pints
7 cps chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes (we core and chop our tomatoes but don't worry about peeling or seeding them generally)
2 cps chopped, seeded, peeled cucumbers
2 cups chopped and seeded banana peppers
1 cp sliced green onion
1/2 cup chopped, peeled, roasted, Anaheim peppers
1/2 cup chopped jalapeno peppers
1/4 cup minced cilantro
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs minced fresh marjoram
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup vinegar
2 tbs lime juice
"Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4" headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner."
Here's a tip I learned to follow the hard way. Wear gloves when cutting peppers!!!

Jalapeno salsa - The Mister's favorite (caution...this stuff is hot!)
Yield: about 3 pints
3 cups tomatoes, cored and chopped
3 cups chopped jalapeno peppers
1 cup chopped onion
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbs minced cilantro
2 tsp oregano
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cider vinegar
"Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4" headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner."

Zesty Salsa - has a mildy spicy flavor with a slight tang
10 cups tomatoes, chopped and cored
5 cups chopped and seeded long green peppers
5 cups chopped onions
2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded hot peppers
3 gloves garlic minced
2 tbs cilantro, minced
3 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups cider vinegar
1 tsp hot pepper sauce
"Combine all ingredients in a large sauce pot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving 1/4" headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner."

We did discover that for some reason our yield is typically much higher then the estimated, most likely because we don't skin and seed our tomatoes. Something else to consider is canning your salsa in half pints. These make great gifts, and because home canned food doesn't have preservatives, it doesn't last as long in the fridge as store bought versions, so smaller quantities may work better for your family.

We also had some peach salsa from a friend that was awesome! I'm thinking I'll make some of my own this year. We also bought a couple of Tomatillo plants and plan to try a tomatillo salsa recipe this year if it produces well.

What is your favorite salsa?

Twilight Saga - Stephenie Meyer

I'm sure many of you have already read these since they are so well known but maybe you haven't. I resisted for a very long time. I tend to avoid things that are thrown in my face every fifteen feet at any given store. So when Twilight first came out I refused to be sucked in. Until a good friend recommended them to me. Guess what!? I love the books! I'm "rereading" the books via audio right now and they are great stories. The movies frankly are a very shabby rendition. Somehow the story doesn't seem nearly as cheesy when you're not looking at bad makeup jobs. :) I've seen the movies, I enjoyed them (who wouldn't appreciate Jacob Black?) but as is the case most of the time, the books are one hundred times better than the movies. I would not recommend these for tweens, they are definitely geared towards older teens and adults.

If you're interested in listening to the books I recommend the version read by Ilyana Kadushin. This happens to be the edition my library carries, and she does a fantastic job.

Kitchen Aid Blender

We use a blender a lot in our house. So when our last blender cracked around the blade and started leaking we decided it was time to invest in something a little heavier duty. We've gone through three blenders in the last couple of years. We had two requirements: 1) it had to blend ice and do it well and 2) since it has a permanent residence on our counter, I wanted it to look good. We already use KitchenAid appliances and have been very happy with them so far so we started researching their blenders.

We found this one on Amazon for about $80.00. In the end it will so be worth the investment it it lasts more than a year. This has some great features. The pitcher is plastic (we lost one blender when the glass chipped around the bottom) The blade is not removable, it is part of the of the pitcher and so there are no chances it will crack or chip around the blade. You wash it by putting in a little soapy water, hit blend, then rinse.

It blends ice beautifully and is quieter then any blender we've ever had. We make frappuccinos and/or smoothies everyday at our house so we've already given it a good workout.

The ONLY complaint we have is that the rubber lid doesn't fit tightly and if you overfill the blender it will drip liquid out around the top.

When we were reading some reviews before buying it, there was a complaint about leaks around the base. We haven't had the slightest problem with that.

Fyi: all opinions on my blog are my own. I don't work with sponsors or companies that offer kickbacks and/or promotions unless specified.

To Market to Market - Anne Miranda

We LOVED this book. Monkey was cracking up at all of the animals silly antics. Click on the picture below to get a peek inside. The background of each page features real life black and white photos of markets while the animals and the star of the book are cartoon drawings in color.

Publishers weekly says "In this clever riff on the old nursery rhyme, a plump matron makes a series of increasingly calamitous purchases of animals at the supermarket. This is one market trip children will wish to take again and again," PW said. Ages 5-8.

We happened to find this at our library in an oversized boardbook version so Monkey is able to flip through the pages again and again and again.....

A plea to the unobservant

Please please take thirty extra seconds to pay attention before coming up with a conclusion.

Example: I just had a contractor come in that has been doing this job for twenty some years. He was asking about the time frame on an expected shipment because we are out of an item he needs. I look at our inventory and it says we actually have said item in stock. So we go out to the warehouse to look, and sure enough there it is, right where it should be. He says to me....oh, the box is grey. Ok, so to give him a little leeway, the other boxes are blue and red to match what's in them (and you have to bend over to be able to read the label). This particular item is white, so the box is grey, because obviously if you have a white label on something that is white, well...you get the idea. The part that is annoying is that on that grey label, which he obviously looked at because he knew it was grey, it says "white."

Um yeah, observant? Not so much.

 I get this a lot, I work with a lot of men.

We now say: Did you look like you would look? or did you look like I would look?

They are getting use to this. Typically they now say, I'll go look again.

Yeah, good idea.

Milestone

This week we have reached a major milestone at our house. No, I'm not talking about potty training, but that would be really nice. I'm talking about the fact that seemingly overnight the boys have discovered that they can in fact play together.

My boys have very different personalities. While Monkey is perfectly happy to stay occupied driving cars or building with blocks for hours at a time, Bubby is physically incapable of entertaining himself. Now, I realize this is probably a normal first child thing, as in first child, first grandchild on the Mister's side, first to be babysat by four older cousins. Bubby has not had to entertain himself much in his first five years.

Now don't get me wrong, I love playing games, reading books, etc. with both of the boys, but seriously, who doesn't get bored playing "store" over and over and over again.

For the past few nights they have played doctor and gun fight (yes I have those kind of boys and I've accepted it) while I worked at the computer for an hour. It was wonderful.

Since the weather is finally improving, I am doing my best to cut out screen time. Now that they are finally coming up with games together, it is making the transition so much easier. No, I don't count my time on the computer as screen time since it typically happens at night and I'm generally blogging, listing items on Etsy or using SCAL.

Most of our time at home has been spent outside if the weather is decent. My yard looks like a toystore threw up on it but whatever. I've been letting the boys run amuck (sp!?) building "busy towns" and doing whatever else they can come up with. I will start incorporating some more structured time soon. I have lots of messy art projects I've been saving up for nice weather so we can do them outside with the hose nearby :).

How do you encourage your little ones to play together?

The Cat in the Hat and other Dr. Seuss Favorites

We have had this CD version of Dr. Seuss for a while now but Bubby has just recently taken an interest in it so I thought I'd share. He has liked books on tape for a long time and we spend most of our time in the car listening to stories. One of his birthday presents earlier this year was a cd/tape player that sits on a shelf above his bed along with a box of his cds so he can change them out whenever he wants. I'm pretty sure he's listened to The Cat in The Hat every night for the last two weeks.

I've listened to it a couple of times and I really enjoy the readers. The line up includes Billy Crystal, Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammar, Dustin Hoffman, and more.

The two disc set includes:

The Cat in the Hat read by Kelsey Grammer
Horton Hears a Who read by Dustin Hoffman
How the Grinch Stole Christmas read by Walter Matthau
Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? read by John Cleese
The Lorax read by Ted Danson
Yertle the Turtle, Gertrude McFuzz, and The Big Brag read by John Lithgow
Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose read by Mercedes McCambridge
Horton Hatches the Egg read by Billy Crystal
The Cat in the Hat Comes Back read by Kelsey Grammer

Fyi: my opinions are my own. I'm not sponsored by any companies and what you see is what you get. No tricks, kickbacks, or promotions.

New on Etsy

I just listed some new items on Etsy. Some tags and Baby Boy embellishments. You can see them at Small Town Life

Tomatoes and the beginning of our garden

We went to the Master Gardeners Plant Sale this weekend, which we attend every year. We were able to get most of the plants that we wanted starts for. I still want to pick up cucumbers which they didn't have. Everything else we will be starting from seed. I wanted to show you some of the tomato plants we picked to try out. (The second day of the sale ends with a $5.00/shopping cart sale. Everything you can cram in your cart is $5.00, so we snapped up lots of tomato plants to try out).

Brandywine

 

This particular plant we happened to get from a friend that use to do commercial growing. As you can see from the photo these tomatoes are huge! He has been an immense help to us this year and we've learned all kinds of things about natural fertilizers (read manure, I'll share our info in another post) and alternative ways of growing tomatoes. Instead of allowing Brandywines to grow into your typical tomato bush, he told us to pinch off the suckers as the plant grows taller and to train it up an 8' plant post. Instead of bushing out, our plant should end up looking more like a vine and as the tomatoes ripen the plant will lean over so we an reach to pick them. As soon as it stops raining (!!!) I will take some pictures of our set up so you can see what I mean.



Mortgage Lifters

We have never grown these but they were recommended by one of the Master Gardeners and they are supposed to be about the size of an adult hand.

Stupice

We grew these last year and they were phenomenal! They are similar to a Roma and we used them to make our salsas. They produced an amazing amount of tomatoes. I will warn you that the standard three ring tomato cages did not do the trick. These bushes were way too heavy and toppled all of our cages. This variety happens to be a cold weather plant, since we had about two weeks of summer last year they did great. We'll see what happens this year.

Valencia



I don't actually know anything about these guys. They obviously are more of an orange then red. I'm hoping to be able to mix these with some of the deeper red tomatoes in our salsa this year for some added color.

There are a couple of other varieties but I can't remember their names at the moment. We also picked up spaghetti squash, acorn squash, broccoli, vining zucchini, basil, dill, oregano, yellow bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, green bell peppers, tomatillos, raspberries, a goose berry bush, and some other stuff that is escaping my memory. We already put in our first round of onion bulbs and I'll do another set in the next couple of weeks. We'll be adding garlic bulbs, carrots, corn, green beans, lettuce, and a few other veggies from seed.

We also picked up the materials to put together an herb garden on one side of our regular garden area. Since herbs will usually reseed themselves I wanted to do this in a separate area that wouldn't get tiled every year. We have an area that is just about 9' between the house and the sidewalk that gets afternoon sun and we plan to build our boxes 4' wide so we can reach across from either side without standing in them. We are also planning on doing a second box with strawberries. I hear the weather is supposed to clear up late this week so hopefully we'll be able to put the box together soon!

The Great Nursery Rhyme Disaster - David Conway

We've gone back to the basics and have reading a lot of nursery rhymes and fairy tales lately. We just read this one last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. The pictures are bright and fun, there is plenty to look at and keep your little one interested.

Basically Little Miss Muffet gets tired of being scared by the spider and decides to move to another nursery rhyme. As she goes farther and farther into the book the nursery rhymes begin mixing themselves up. She tries joining Jack and Jill, Peter Piper, and The Queen of Hearts before realizing that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

This is a great book for reading aloud, or for early readers.

Favorite Home Decor Blogs

There are so many amazing people out there writing amazing blogs. I wanted to share a few of my favorites. 

The Shabby Chic Cottage

Gina has an incredible Etsy shop and a beautiful home. One of my most recent favorites are these super easy and cheap chalkboard labels. How fun would these be!?

Gus and Lula

I've been following Britt for a while now and I absolutely love her style. Her and her husband just returned home from adopting two adorable babies from Ethiopia (Gus and Lula) so she's on a sort of hiatus. I can't wait to see what she has up her sleeve when she comes back. I love these matching bunting blankets she made for her sweet little ones.

Knock Off Decor

Knock Off Decor features home decor inspired by companies like Anthropologie, Crate and Barrel, and Pottery Barn. She features super cool home decor ideas like this growth chart made to look like an oversize ruler. Love it!

My Repurposed Life

Gail not only has the ability to make something from nothing, she has the ability to make amazing from nothing. This table top is nothing more than brown paper, Modge Podge, and some stain!! Paper bags people! I am in love with it. When she painted her vinyl kitchen floor, I looked at my own yellow 70's linoleum and felt serious envy. She is always redoing furniture or building customer shelving and such for her friends and family. You must go check her out!

This isn't even close to all of the awesome blogs I want to share with you, but I actually am one boy short for the evening and the other is playing a mean game of chess with The Mister. So I....am going to break out the cricut and cut out some cute new embellishments for a "Smores" page I'm working on. Hopefully I'll have them up on Small Town Life soon!

Egyptian Walking Onions

 

I've mentioned these before and wanted to show you more about them. They are Egyptian Walking Onions. Three years ago we bought a few small plants at a Master Gardener's plant sale and they have turned into this huge patch. We have sold and given away hundreds of starts over the last couple of years.

 I found a really cool website called The Egyptian Walking Onion that sells the starts, but also gives excellent information for planting, harvesting, and using your onions. 

"Harvesting the topsets:	In mid to late summer and autumn the top-sets may be harvested. The optimal time to pluck off the topsets is when the leafstalk has dried and turned brown. More than likely, it has fallen over by this time. Be sure to remove any topsets that have fallen to the ground if you do not want them to self-sow in their new locations. Despite their name, these plants are very easy to control and keep from spreading just by harvesting the top-sets.
Harvesting the greens:	The greens (leaves) may be cut and harvested at any time. If you harvest all the greens from one plant, the plant will probably not be able to produce topsets for that year. If the plant is producing several leaf stalks, just harvest one or two of smaller side leaves, and the plant should still produce topsets. Soon after you have harvested the leaves from an Egyptian Walking Onion plant, new leaves will start to grow in their place which can be harvested again. If you live in a mild climate, your Egyptian Walking Onion plant may produce greens all year round. In the fall after the topsets have matured and fallen to the ground, or after they have been harvested, new greens will start to grow - yummy!
Harvesting the onion bulbs in the ground:	The onions at the base of the plant that are growing in the ground can be harvested in late summer and fall. Be sure to leave some onions in the ground for next year's crop. An Egyptian Walking Onion bulb is about the same size and shape as a shallot. Bigger bulbs may be obtained by cutting off the topsets before they develop. That way the plant can put its energy into the onion bulb in the ground instead of into the topsets. Note: if you harvest the onion bulb in the ground, you will destroy the plant - it will not grow back next year. So, if you want to eat the onion bulbs in the ground, make sure to replace them by planting topsets, or offsets from the bulb."

Egyptian Walking Onions are not invasive and are easy to control, however, if left to their own devices they will "walk" across your garden like crazy. The small bulbs seen in this photo on the top of the stalks will turn into starts that look like this:

The Egyptian Walking Onion

You can pick the bulbs off and replant them, or just wait until they either tip the stalk over, or fall off, and they will root themselves. Each of those small bulbs will make a whole new plant. I would recommend these for beginner gardeners and children because they are pretty much care free and they grow very quickly.