Those of you who’ve been part of the farm community for awhile know that things don’t always work out as planned. Farmers are at the mercy of so many variables that we sometimes lose a crop or have unexpected outcomes due to weather, pest infestations, variability in soil conditions, seed issues and other factors. These fall “spring” onions are an example of finding ourselves with lemons and making lemonade.
We grew a half acre of bulb onions over last winter that yielded a fine spring crop. By early summer, the onions we dried were all gone, and we were wishing we’d grown twice as many onions. So this year we seeded a large field of starter onions in mid August with the intent to transplant the onions at a wider spacing to grow over winter and bulb up in spring. We were counting on the onions putting their energy into the green above-ground shoots. However one of the varieties we planted started to bulb up a couple weeks ago. These onions cannot overwinter and have no room in the tightly spaced starter field to size up properly.
What went wrong? A call to the seed company reveals that we’re not the only ones to experience this problem with this seed variety. Luckily, the other half of the starter onions behaved as expected and we have already transplanted most of them out.
The only thing to do with the renegade onions is to harvest them as “spring” onions right now. Unfortunately this means a smaller onion crop next year. But they do make a very flavorful spring onion — these are lovely roasted whole or halved alongside potatoes in the oven, or chopped and sauteed with kale or summer squash. And you get two onions in one with the green onion scallions along with the bulbs.
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