By: Farmer Richard
Onions being unloaded for drying in the greenhouse. |
This week has been a big week for us. In addition to our regular weekly tasks,
we’ve been trying to get all of our onions pulled, dried and safely stored in
the greenhouse. We have been blessed
with several days of dry weather which allowed us to start our harvest last
week. We brought some onions in on
Saturday, then pulled more and left them to dry on top of the bed in the field
before we brought them into the greenhouse on Tuesday for the final drying, cleaning,
etc. But now we’re faced with chances of
rain the rest of the week. Yes, there is
an anticipation as well as some apprehension and nervousness that goes along
with the excitement of every onion harvest.
I sleep at night because I’m simply tired, but I won’t sleep soundly
until all the onions are harvested and safely under cover. Two-thirds of this year’s crop are harvested
and so far, they look great!
Onions are an important crop on our farm. They aren’t one of our big dollar crops, in
fact they are probably one of the most labor intensive crops to handle with a
higher overall cost of production. However,
we firmly believe that daily consumption of plants in the onion/garlic family
is one key to good health and they are a staple ingredient that we, and many
other families, include in our daily meals.
Thus, we plan to include an onion and/or garlic selection of some sort
in every CSA box over the course of our thirty week season.
Wild Ramps |
With the above goals in mind, we start the season with ramps,
wild-harvested from our woods. Ramps are
followed or accompanied by several perennial selections including chives and
our overwintered Egyptian walking onions and potato onions. These selections give us a jump start on the
season while we are hustling to grow onions from seed to cover the remainder of
the year and get us through the winter until the next spring when we start
again with the perennial crops. The
beauty of onions is that they are “in season” every season of the year!
Whether red, white or yellow onions, there are a wide
variety of choices to select from and we consider the genetics of a seed to be
very important. We look for varieties that have disease
resistant tops that will survive long enough to produce a full sized
onion. The sweet Spanish onions you’ve
been receiving in your boxes the past few weeks are an early season variety
that is very mild when eaten raw and super sweet when cooked because of their
higher levels of sugars. They have a
thinner outer skin and will store for just 3-6 months at most. In contrast, there are different varieties
grown to produce an onion that has the ability to hold in long-term storage for
9-12 months. These varieties are usually
“tear jerkers” and are much stronger and more pungent. They still have natural sugars that come out
when cooked, but the chemical makeup of the onion and lower sugar
concentrations are what help keep the onion in good quality during long
storage. We don’t need to store onions
for 9-12 months, so in recent years we have opted to grow more shorter season
sweet onions that grow faster and are more mild. We believe there are health benefits from
eating raw or just lightly cooked onions and garlic, so for several different
reasons we consider onions in this class to be a good fit for us.
Potato onions popping up in the spring!! |
Onions are a challenge to grow in that they grow slow and
their tops are poor competitors against weeds.
Also, they are vulnerable to the tiny onion thrip, a natural pest enemy which
sucks on onion tops deep in the center and leaves holes for disease spores to enter
the onion as they kill the top and hence stop the onion development. Commercial, conventional onions are all treated
with systemic insecticide, a neonicotinoid which
has its own severe problems.
Onions respond well to regular watering, but can quickly
suffer from too much water. Twenty-five
years ago, when we grew onions on bare ground, we would harvest good looking
onions to dry in the greenhouse, only to find later that many had “soft rot” in
the center or a soft layer somewhere in the rings. Our investigations led us to understand that
the bad layer was the result of an earlier wet weather event in the field. The neck rot was due to damage caused by the thrips that created an
entry point into the onion for the bacteria that causes soft rot.
So we decided we needed a new strategy. We transitioned to a system of transplanting 4 rows of onions on a raised bed, covered with plastic mulch that has a shiny, reflective surface that almost totally keeps thrips away by disorienting them! The raised bed drains off excess water quickly, but the buried drip tape under the bed allows us to water and feed onions at their roots.
Onions starting out in the greenhouse. Waiting for the day they can be in the field! |
Before the storms blew through a few weeks ago, we had nice
sized onions and shallots in the field.
The high winds blew the tops down, which was the start of the dry down
process. The size of an onion is
determined by how thick or thin we seed them in the greenhouse. Single onions can easily reach 1# each! Too big for most meals, leaving you with a
partially used onion in the refrigerator to be forgotten. In my “humble cook” opinion, I think it is better
to have more modest sized onions that can be used in one meal yet not so small
that you have to peel several at a time. We pay close attention to the quality
of the seed and try to adjust our seeding rate accordingly to get the size
onions we’re looking for.
Field of Onions! |
Onions on the plastic mulch drying a little before heading to the greenhouse for more drying time! |
1 comment:
We DO appreciate the amazing effort - and the delicious result. Thank you!
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