Do you have strong feelings about onions?

Pity the onion, I say. They have to be one of the unsexiest vegetables ever to grace the garden. Tomatoes get gobs of accolades. Sweet corn is sublime. We ooh and ahh over the juicy flesh of vipe-ripened melons. But poor onions do their thing without any acclaim.  Forget the fact that they are used in so many culinary dishes I can’t even begin to list them, and they keep for months despite abject neglect.

I root for the underdog, so I am an onion fan. Yes, they make me cry, and no, I won’t wear those silly-looking goggles you see in gourmet catalogs. I just wipe the tears and try not to cut my finger off as I slice and dice. I like to grow my onions from sets, which are partially started onion bulbs you just have to plunk in the ground and water.

This year I got wondering how I could grow those cute little cippolinis, the small, flat onions that all the restaurants suddenly serve. Despite the fact that I’d failed repeated at growing onions from seed in past years, I ordered some. And I ordered sets, too, because I knew I would fail again.

Well, I was wrong. Absolutely everything onionesque grew like mad. I planted eight long rows of onions and still had some left. I have huge sweet white onions, little purple onions, cippolinis, and some I haven’t even pulled yet. Visitors to the house must walk a promenade of drying onions to reach the front door. And though I generously offer, I can’t give them away.

Which, come to think of it, suits me fine. Viva la onion! More for me!

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 8:18 am and is filed under Beets, Carrots + Root veggies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.