This week I began to read a memoir by Ruth Reichl titled Comfort Me With Apples. It tells you something about the time of year right off that I get to read a book, now. Most of the farm work is harvest type, very little planting or tending, which frees me up a bit. Ruth writes amazing descriptions of all sorts of foods and wine, making for some very appetizing and satisfying reading. She describes a 1945 wine, “I thought briefly of what the world was like when the wine was put into the bottle. Paris was being liberated; there was dancing in the streets. I imagined I could taste all that.” Another friend of mine enjoys thinking of the place and time of wine grape harvests as she sips a particular wine.

Well, friends, I like to think back on the relatively recent history embodied in the bites of my onions. Onions have always been one of my favorite crops. I use one in almost every meal I cook. We grow several different types, all from seed. So the history of this week’s onions begins when I was selecting the seeds from the catalogs in January, planting them in trays in February, watering those trays in the start house, and preparing the field for them in March. It could have been the end of March or the beginning of April when Colin and I and Jose and Elena transplanted each one from tray to earth. I remember we had nice weather for our work, even when it was rainy, we didn’t get too wet, and then the sun would steam us dry again.
I remember talking while we worked about how happy we were to be able to work with our spouses, what a treat, how little like work, how much like fun. Jose told Colin, “When I was little, I liked to play in the dirt, I still do.” There was a lot of laughing, a lot of crawling up and down long rows, a lot of onions going into the ground. I remember weeding them later, having races, and getting beaten. Tough on the old lady’s pride to not be the fastest weeder on the team, but ultimately a good thing for the farm. And the onion harvest that began two weeks ago is still going strong. As the weather has held, we have given the onions a longer field cure time. The juicy green leaf parts are shriveling, browning, and sealing off the bulbs for winter keeping. Some varieties are more ready to come in first, others want longer to roll about in the sun. As you enjoy the sweet taste of this week’s onions, remember all of the sweet fun we made of the work of growing them for you.