Week 3 | 2024
A few years after we started farming, my old man told me to get off the farm, put on some nice clothes, and start reaching out to restaurants to sell the abundance of food we were growing. I tried to explain that I hoped the food would sell itself and that if the chefs wanted the food, they’d come for it.
But when the chefs didn’t appear, I reluctantly listened to him and started to reach out to some local eateries. Rejection and dejection soon became popular words in my vocabulary. Most chefs, busy in the kitchen, didn’t even take the time to see me and those that did, promised to follow up but never did. I worked hard to find new clients but felt like a desperate used car salesman on a rainy Monday.
Then one day, I was called from the field to the market and was greeted sourly by a sixty-something man who looked like he just bit into an unripe plum. He said he owned a restaurant and wanted to use our food. I was delighted when he loaded up with beans, fingerling potatoes, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and herbs. He grumbled loudly when he paid and without thanks, left us wondering if we’d ever see him again.
A few days later, Sour-face reappeared. Once again, I loaded his car with different vegetables and fruits. This continued right through the summer and into late fall. He never complimented us, complained bitterly when we didn’t meet his quality standards, fiercely demanded us to grow what he wanted and maintained the same sour personality throughout our entire relationship. But I didn’t care. He was buying our food.
When we visited his restaurant that same year, we found our farm name written in flowing cursive at the top of his menu. We were ecstatic. That night, as we feasted, I think I even caught him smiling at us from the kitchen unless it was the wine that was warping my vision.
In the years that followed, other chefs began to use our produce in their kitchens. Like my sour-faced friend, they wanted our food, not so they could splash the word “local” all over their menus and on Instagram, but because it was fresher, tasted better and because they valued the work local farmers were doing in their communities.
A strong and lasting two-way relationship opens when chefs support farmers and farmers support chefs and this relationship isn’t showy and loud. Instead, it’s built on firm trust, unfailing integrity, and a conviction to provide only the best in service and care for those whom we serve.
Farm Grown Onions
Onions are my favorite crop to grow. I love the feel of the black, crinkly seeds as I roll them between my fingers, and I love their thin hollow leaves. I love how one day, around the summer solstice, they suddenly decide to swell and bulb up storing energy in their roots to survive the upcoming winter. And, most especially, I love the sound and aroma of onions sauteing in butter.
Onions aren’t hard to grow but there are a few simple tips and tricks that will help you get them bigger than a softball and storing right through the winter.
First, you should be transplanting your onions in rich organic soil no later than early May. This means you’ll need to seed them indoors six to eight weeks earlier. It is possible to germinate them in an unheated hoophouse directly in a grow bed by loosely scattering seeds at a rate of fifty per square foot. Snip the tops to force root growth when they’re three or four inches tall.
Onion seedlings are tough and transplant easily. Pull them out of the ground helping them along with a trowel not worrying if the soil falls off the roots. Transplant them in your garden spacing them on an 8x8 inch grid pattern. Keep soil moist until August and after that, stop watering completely.
I don’t know why this isn’t more obvious to our gardeners, but most vegetables with a days-to-maturity over one hundred days need four or five applications of a nitrogen rich compost every few weeks. The same goes for onions. Remember, we want them big, and we want them tasty so make sure you feed them.
Pull onions when they begin to topple in late August or early September and allow the tops to dry thoroughly including the neck. Handle them as gently as eggs—this goes for all root vegetables—they bruise easier than you think. Remember we want to store them through the winter.
Finally, after October keep them in a well-ventilated room holding a consistent temperature between 7C and 12C. Choose varieties like the yellow Hamilton, Patterson and Copra and the red Rosa di Milano if you’re looking to keep onions until Spring of the following year.
An onion that’s healthy throughout the growing season, is an onion that tastes and stores the best. This year grow big healthy onions.
