Sweet Onions

From Jon Alcock, Sunshine Farm

When we first moved to the farm in the autumn of 1987, we started with 10 sheep, 9 ewes and a ram, 10 wiener pigs, a few guinea fowl, (much to Sher’s chagrin) and a few laying hens from Valley Auction in Armstrong.

Obviously we were able to build a pretty good compost right away with all that manure and the huge biomass of spent and seeded weeds and left over hay stalk from the previous owner’s cattle.

The following spring I started some Riverside Sweet Spanish onions in flats on our back porch next to the windows. With a front tine hand rototiller I worked up a patch in what had been a calf pen.

The ground was a deep black luscious earth that almost looked like German chocolate cake. I remember almost tasting it because it looked so good. Within 10 days the tilled up ground looked like a lawn with the profusion of weeds which had germinated. I tilled the ‘garden’ again to keep the weeds at bay while I dealt with the lambs being born, the fencing which needed upgrading, the hauling of hay for the sheep, the processing of the wieners , now 240 lb pigs with the assistance of my ever helpful neighbour.

My onion transplants were looking great especially after feeding them with fish fertilizer. I finally got them planted into the calfpen in beautiful rich compost by the second week of April and kept them impeccably weeded until the end of September when I started to harvest 2-3 lb bulbs. They were a definite success and I have continued to grow these amazing beasts now for almost 40 years with the success they showed that first year. The seed is impossible to find as either organic or untreated but I continue to get it from Stokes as untreated. I have been able to produce some seed but it seems never enough to grow more than just my own bulbs. They are a staple in our kitchen and keep well into the spring.