A Whole Lotta Alliums All the Time

There is something special about cutting into an onion that initiates the cooking process, unless of course you cut the garlic first.  The tears and house full of those smells signals the beginning of almost every meal in our house.  Both of these alliums we are pulling out of our root cellar, reminds me of both what is to come and what was.

No other crop we grow has such a long and diverse season.  Onions seeds are the first ones to be planted in our greenhouse.  By the end of January we have flat upon flat of little onions coming up, looking like little chives or blades of grass.  When the snow melts and the very first signs of spring show, the garlic too shows a little green above the soil.  They seem to be sticking their hand out the door to feel how cold it is or how much rain is coming down.  These signs from the alliums ring in the beginning of a new season, unlike no other vegetable.

In just the same way these sprigs of various alliums signal the next season it is garlic, my favorite of the alliums that signifies the ending of the season.  It is planted in the fall and usually is (at least at our farm) the last thing to get planted.  Ideally we wait for those incredible Indian summer days in the crisp Colorado fall after the first frost and flakes have come.  But sometimes it means digging into muddy soil as the flakes and frost are coming.  Once the garlic is in the ground a sigh of relief comes over the farm and we start to eye our skis. 

Garlic also signifies the beginning of the main harvest season.  As the summer heat pours on us the garlic is watered less and less until not at all and the leaves die down when it is ready to be harvested, starting in the end of June.  After the garlic is out of the ground it seems like the harvesting does not stop again until we plant the garlic again.  Garlic is not grown from seed but instead from the previous year’s harvest.  The worst part is that the enormous heads that seem like a treasure coming out of the ground and would be so easy to peel and dice are the ones that must be kept for the fall planting. 

The onions and shallots too seem to have a never ending season.  After they are transplanted into the field from the greenhouse the weeding begins.  Hoeing, flaming, vinegar and lots of hand weeding are what is required for the Alliums.  They do not offer big leaves that shade out the weeds, so this above most else is how I think of the onion patch, buried in weeds, but when we do clear them they stand tall and proud. 

Onions and shallots are a long season crop that are transplanted early and come out of the ground late.  Some of the heirloom varieties we love such as the Red Long of Tropea, a torpedo shaped mild red onion (great halved on the grill with a dash of salt and pepper, squirt of lemon and olive oil) come out of the field earlier or can be harvested over several weeks.  Another type of flat onion called cippolinis also have a shorter season and work this way too.  We can not wait for the Walla Wallas, the sweet onions, to size up and instead start harvesting them a bit young and we seem to always run out of them no matter how many we plant.

But over the last few years it is the storage onions that have won a spot in my heart.  They come out of the ground late and are stored for use all winter long.  If in April I can still pull out a solid onion from the last season to fill the senses of a meal to come, while at the same time transplanting the next years crop out into the field, the magic circle has been completed.  I have come to love all the alliums for this circle that they bring to the farm in spite of their lack of cooperation in battling the weeds.