Tuesday, August 13, 2013

And The Winner Is.....!

The final poundage count for the onions is in! It destroyed my last record! Oh, alright, I've only been weighing my produce for three years, but what a good year for onions! I posted about them earlier, definitely the star of the 2013 garden. Aren't they gorgeous?? If I do say so myself.
 I plant about the same number of onions every year, starting the seeds in February. Two years ago I got a hefty 40 and 3/4 pounds that saw us comfortably through the year, and we do cook a lot with onions. Last year I got a miserable 13 and 3/4 pounds of mostly small marble sized onions. And you know what a pain in the neck it is to peel multiple little onions when a recipe calls for one large one. But this year! I had them curing outside for a week until the weatherman lied to me and I left them uncovered only to get rained on. So they were trimmed and brought into our very dry basement to complete the process for another week before they were weighed and put in their baskets. The final total: 74 and 1/2 pounds!!! From about the same number of onions, because this year, they grew BIG! Yeah, baby!
 The basket in the forefront is full of Ailsa Craigs. They will be used first, since they usually only store well for about 2 months. They are huge, the two largest weigh 3/4 pound each. The rear baskets contain a variety of storage onions: Redwing, Prince (a favorite), Pontiac and Varsity with a couple of Copra thrown in for good measure. I weighed the shallots too: there are four pounds of nice large ones.
Told my husband to freely use all the onion he wants when he's whipping up a dish. I know I will! Chopping the onions just got a whole lot easier!

10 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! My onion production was down this year, and they were smaller than usual too. I always buy plants by the bunch at our local farm store, and the quality just wasn't as good as usual. I'm thinking I should start my own seeds next year.

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    1. I enjoy starting my own especially because they are the very first things I plant in the new growing year. The plants don't come out nearly as robust as the ones I've seen for sale, but they usually more than make up for it once they're set outside.

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  2. WOW! Fantastic harvest totals for onions! The ones i planted from seeds are the size of a marbles, but the ones from seedlings are pretty good size too.

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    1. Thanks! Yours from seed sound like what I had last year.

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  3. Wonderful onion harvest. I keep thinking I need to make some onion rings to use my Ailsa Craigs up.

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    1. Thank you! Oooh, onion rings! Now there's a thought!

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  4. What a wonderful onion crop! Mine didn't amount to much this year! Enjoy! Nancy

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    1. Thank you Nancy! I'm sorry yours didn't do so well. If I lived closer, I'd share. The gardener's mantra: there's always next year!

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  5. So many onions!!! I hope to harvest a fraction of what you have there! And, they're pretty, too! Congratulations!!!

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    1. Thank you Bee Girl! They are the bright spot in a garden landscape with a lot of disappointments this year!

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