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Onions in early summer
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The humble onion must surely be the most maligned of all vegetables. Often distained for its tendency to cause foul breath, frequently criticized for its pungent flavor, and sometimes avoided altogether for its ability to make even grown men weep, the poor, underappreciated onion is nevertheless the workhorse of savory home cooking. Perhaps the onion has an image problem. Even garlic doesn't get a rap this bad, being as it is the star of shrimp scampi, garlic bread, and numerous other dishes universally considered to be yummy. But with the possible exceptions of French Onion Soup and caramelized onions, our hero the onion doesn't get much limelight, relegated as it usually is to play a supporting role in the preparation of fine food.
Be that as it may, the onion has a lot to offer. In fact, it seems sometimes that nearly every meal we cook begins the same way, with the peeling and chopping of onions. Their pungency tamed by heat, cooked onions provide the foundation for countless savory dishes. When gently sautéed or simmered, onions become creamy and their natural sweet sugars are released. They are a binder of flavors, marrying protein with starch, meat with vegetables, oil with natural juices, spices with herbs, to achieve the essential harmony that is the very manifestation of the term "savory." Raw onions, on the other hand, when used in moderation add a delightfully fresh pungency to all types of salads, sandwiches, and of course hamburgers.
Onions store well in the cellar, with some varieties lasting as long as 6 months. It's nearly impossible for me to plant enough onions for our family's consumption, so our stock seldom lasts that long. On top of their culinary value, onions are very healthy food for many reasons, not the least of which is because they contain quercetin, a powerful antioxidant. For nutrition information and almost everything you ever wanted to know about the many virtues of the humble onion, be sure and visit the website of the National Onion Association.
Just about the only piece of onion-related information not covered on the National Onion Association's website is how to grow them. This stands to reason, as "...the NOA is the official organization representing growers, shippers, brokers, and commercial representatives of the U.S. onion industry" and therefore surely more interested in convincing you to buy onions than teaching you how to produce them for yourself. Never fear! Where the NOA leaves off, TheKitchenGardener picks up.
Onions may be grown from seeds, or from "sets" which are really just immature onion bulbs that will begin growing again when planted in mid spring. I use sets for growing scallions, also known as green onions. These can be planted quite close together, barely 2 inches apart, and should be planted weekly from mid spring until mid summer to ensure a continuous supply of fresh green onions for kitchen use. Onion sets are sold in farm and garden stores as well as home improvement stores and discount stores at planting time in spring, and they are scandalously cheap - a bag of 100 onion sets will typically cost you a grand total of 99 cents. The type of onions most commonly sold as sets here in the Northern half of the US are of a variety called Stuttgart; if allowed to mature, they will produce a medium sized, pungent onion that stores very well through the winter. While I have nothing against the Stuttgart onion, the sets I plant are used only for green onions - my bulbing onions are grown from seed because there is a much wider variety available. After years of comparison, my old standbys are Copra (a large, mild white onion that reliably grows to a uniform size here in the Northeast) and Redwing (a large red onion with considerable sugar content, yet excellent storage life). Pay attention when selecting onion seeds - onion bulb formation is triggered by daylight length, with some varieties responding differently to daylight than others. Gardeners in the Northern half of the US will want to select long-day type onions, while those in warmer regions will want to select short-day varieties. Some varieties are considered day-neutral, and (in theory anyway) should perform well in both climates.
Onion seeds should be started indoors in late winter. They don't mind being crowded - I usually plant about 30-40 seeds in a 4-inch diameter pot. Within a week or so you'll see them break the soil surface, appearing first as crooked little green elbows. When they all straighten out, it will look like the pot has been planted with grass. As the seedlings mature, keep them in a sunny window where they will receive plenty of light, and keep the potting soil moist at all times. If the seedlings get more than 4-inches tall and begin to flop over, you may simply give them a haircut, snipping them back to about 3 inches tall. Despite their spindly appearance, onion seedlings are remarkably tough. They can be planted outdoors in mid spring, and will survive a light frost just fine. Teasing the roots apart during transplant may be a bit nerve racking for the gardener, but the scrappy little onion seedlings don't seem to mind. Be gentle, but not obsessively so and you should see nearly 100% transplant success. I recommend transplanting them into good garden soil that has been enriched with compost, and planting them in block fashion rather than rows, spaced approximately 6-7 inches apart in all directions.
Surely the trickiest part to growing onions is keeping them weed-free. They are somewhat difficult to mulch around when young, so you'll probably find yourself manually pulling or cutting out weeds until the onion plants are large enough that they won't drown in a thick layer of mulch. My personal favorite tool for weeding around young onions is a Cape Cod Weeder, which slices weeds with surgical accuracy just below the soil line. When they are large enough to be easily worked around, onions should be mulched with grass clippings, shredded leaves, straw, or weed-seed-free compost. Prior to mulching, onion plants can be topdressed with a modicum of organic fertilizer such as Espoma Plant Tone, which I don't hesitate to endorse because it is effective and widely available at most nurseries, garden shops, and even big box stores.
Onions should be watered deeply if the soil dries out, through the bulk of the summer. As the tops begin to turn brown, suspend watering and pull the onions from the ground when the tops begin to fall over. Let them cure for a few days in a sunny dry location, then move them into a cool, dry place for storage. The average basement works fine as a storage location. Onions should not be stored next to potatoes, because each produce gasses which cause the other to spoil more quickly.
-Diggity
