Red onions

I know it’s been a while since I have posted anything.  That is one thing about gardening that is really tough.  After all of your spring harvests like peas, radishes, spinach, and lettuce it’s just a waiting game.  We planted some red onions this spring.  My onions have already fallen over (that’s how you know they are ready to pick).  They weren’t very big but then again mine never are.  I grew up in Ontario Oregon, the onion capital of the northwest, and they always have these huge onions.  I remember getting in the car, and if there was an onion truck in front of us and it drops a few onions, my mom would stop the car and make me get out and pick them up so we could take them home.  I don’t remember my parents ever growing onions.  I don’t think we had to because we could just go and pick them up off the road.

The best way to grow onions is to purchase the onion starts and not plant them from seed, unless you have some kind of green house which I don’t.  You know they are ready to be harvested when the green tops fall over.  Then you take them out and let them dry for a few days.  I’ve already used some of mine in a salad.  Onions are pretty resilient and don’t have a lot of pest problems.  This is the first year we’ve planted the red onion.  In years past we have planted a yellow onion.  If don’t like onions but don’t mind having green onions you can plant the starts closer together and harvest the green tops.