While we are all still enjoying the fruits of Summer- tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, berries..., we have also started bringing in the harvest for Fall. Bringing in the Onion Harvest! Onions will be a staple part of our late summer CSA shares as well as for our Fall CSA. These onions were the very first thing seeded in our Greenhouse in February. They were then planted out in to the fields in April and it felt like planting individual blades of grass. They grew and grew with water, sun, compost, and love. Now the tops have started to naturally fall over, Mother Nature's way of telling us the onion has stopped growing and is ready for curing. We pull them out of the ground in the morning and let them dry some in the sun. Then we collect them up and spread them out onto mesh tables in our barn to "cure" until the skins dry completely. This is the point when we trim off the tops at just the right spot. Curing is the art of slow drying a crop to increase long-term storage-ability. Most of our onions will store for months and on into spring (but every few here and there just can't let go of summer and will sprout a bit at the top- that's how Nature works, reminding us that we are not fully in charge.
Their story actually began a lot earlier than February, because we grew the seeds for many of these onion varieties right here at Aspen Moon Farm. The onion plant, in its second year of life will grow "umbles" which bear tiny seeds that we collect and clean by hand. The coolest part is that the germination rate on these Aspen Moon grown seeds is so phenomenally better than that of any that we purchase. This shows us so clearly how the cycle of life kept local produces such strong vitality. We know this also from the taste and nourishment we receive from all the good food grown here at your local Farm. :)
The above photo is a Walla Walla onion, our sweetest variety. Try biting right into this sweet onion like an apple. I daresay these babies out-flavor any Vidalia onion one may desire (btw Vidalia is a region in Georgia, not a variety so you won't ever find a local Vidalia here in Colorado). We also have yellow storage, semi-sweet Valencia, and red Rosas. Onions will continue to be included in CSA shares. Fall shares will begin the first week of November and go through December 15. Fall shares are still available for purchase. The summer share that you are part of now goes through the end of October.
