Onions, Part 2

I sat down to write today, hoping that I hadn’t already done a post on onions. As you can tell from the title, I already have, about a year and a half ago. In that post, I mused about how as useful as onions can be, I find myself gravitating towards the more interesting, less predictable veggies. This spring, between one thing and another, boring and predictable became exactly what we were looking for. Long story short, I’ve just come inside from harvesting about 25 pounds of onions.

It was one of those gardening sessions fueled by frustration - a long line and a grumpy clerk at the post office, a day filled with too many errands and not one, but two seemingly easy tasks that I just can’t seem to check off my list. No one in my house deserved my mood so I pulled into the driveway, grabbed my gardening gloves from the garage and got pulling.

Onions are really fun to harvest. Unlike zucchinis and cucumbers, which have prickly vines, or lettuce and herbs, which have to be treated delicately so they will keep producing, onions are pretty straightforward. You grab the green part and pull. Voila! Out pops an onion. Some years I have in me to braid the onion stems to create a pretty and functional kitchen ornament. Not this time. I gleefully took my gardening knife, hacked off the onion greens and tossed the bulbs into a sack.

It was cathartic. By the time I’d harvested half the bed, the sack was full and my frustration had simmered. And, at that point, even with all my uncompleted tasks, I had at least done something productive today. Anger management isn’t the reason we have the garden but it’s certainly an important side benefit. Now, after gardening, and writing, and taking the time for a cup of tea, I’m just about ready to reenter family life…about an hour later than I wanted to, but I think we’ll all be happier that I took a much needed break.