Onions

I’ve been thinking about onions lately, one of my favorite foods.  We didn’t have time to plant transplants last fall (only a small patch in our home garden), nor did we have our hoop house up in time to start seed extra early like you need to in order to have nice big onions.  I just direct seeded some mini-onions, which are supposed to be small, only 75 days until maturity.  I’m hoping they will get big enough before the lengthening days trigger them to bulb.

The interesting thing about onions is that you need a particular variety depending on your latitude.  We are at approximately 39 degrees, and therefore have fairly long days in the summer.  Thus, we need to choose the long-day onion varieties that are triggered to bulb by the lengthening days.  The short-day varieties will bulb up in early spring here and be tiny, because the shorter days trigger them to bulb.

It’s all a bit mysterious to me, in the sense that how did these onions end up this way.  Was it conscientious breeding by gardeners?  Different plants adapting to different climates?  Or some other complicated play of genetics and environment?  I am constantly amazed at how complex and efficient biological systems really are.