Onions for Valentine's Day?

Thursday, November 02, 2006

When I think about February, I think about Valentine's Day. And that makes me think of love and flowers and chocolate. Not... onions. But my friend Albertino, who has a neighboring plot at the community garden, said, "You plant these now and you'll be picking onions in February!"

I don't doubt him.

Albertino grows loads of onions in his plot, plus all sorts of everything else. Cole crops, fava beans, potatoes, peas, lettuce, strawberries -- even a grapevine, among other things. He has one of the plots that Michael and I refer to as... Iowa. Last winter he set up a cold frame and he was harvesting fresh lettuce in February, while the rest of us were still curled up on the sofa thumbing through garden catalogs and calling in our seed orders for spring.

I was happy to take a few of Albertino's spare onion shoots when he offered them to me on Sunday. He dug up these two clumps -- a mix of baby white and red onions -- which I promptly planted in my plot.


Will they be ready to harvest in February? We shall see. But if it's an exceptionally cold and snowy February, I think I'd rather be... curled up on the sofa with the seed catalogs... and a box of chocolate. Nice thing is that the onions will be just fine in the ground until spring.