onions

Onions are probably the most common ingredient in my kitchen after salt. I use onions in many dishes as a starter. I don't use raw onions very often and then only white ones. The red ones give me heartburn.

For soups, I have switched to using whole onions since 2019 because those are easier to remove. My dog loves my soups, but onions are not good for her.

a. growing onions at home

2013-2017

Growing onions at home is quite easy and it doesn't take much work. It will still be enough work that you won't 'save' money on them if you count your time, but at least you know you have organic onions without any pesticides. In small gardens with companion planting, onions don't normally need to be poisoned to survive.

You can buy small onion plants in spring online or in many stores and plant them for a harvest in early Summer. If you leave an onion to overwinter in the field, it will bloom in the 2nd year and you can collect seeds.

WARNING: Only use short-day varieties in the Southern states. Long-growing varieties need a longer growing season and will not bulb before they are forced into dormancy by the desert summer heat.

Many of these short-day varieties are sowed around October. Leaving them in place will tend to make them bolt in Spring before they bulb. They do much better when replanted in Spring for harvesting from early June on.

Onions require a well-draining soil. If they are kept to wet e.g. too much rain near harvesting time, they can rot in the field or be infected with aspergillis, a mold that drastically reduces storage time.

I have grown white, red and yellow onion varieties. I like the yellow sweet Texas onions best. They are huge and very sweet and do very well in this area. I didn't care much for the red onions; they were too pungent too my liking when desert-grown.

INGREDIENTS

This is what you need:

  • onion seed or seedlings
Pic1: sweet Texas onion

Directions

 

Pic2: 2015-02-11 — purchased onion plants
Pic3: 2017-05-08 — volunteer onion seedlings
Pic4: 2017-05-20 — onion seedlings planted

 

Pic5: 2014-04-26
Pic6: 2014-06-03
Pic7: 2014-06-13

 

Pic8: 2014-06-22 — onion greens have broken ==> unless it will rain, wait 2 weeks for the stems to dry
Pic9: 2015-06-16 — harvested early
Pic10: 2013-07-12 — drying sweet Texas onions

 

Pic11: freshly harvested onions
Pic12: beautiful
Pic13: aspergillis = a common mold disease in wet-season and commercial onions

 

Pic14-16: onions left in the field will bloom in their 2nd year

b. a few onion recipes

I use onions as a supporting vegetable in the many of my recipes, not nearly as often as the main ingredient. The big exception is of course onion soup in all its variations:

 

c. onion recipes on the internet

 

Pic17-19:

 

Pic22-22: