For Crying Out Loud!

Do onions make you cry?  Sometimes when I cut them, tears do well up in my eyes.  Tonight, we had T-bone steaks from our bull calf cooked in a cast iron skillet covered in smothered onions and bell peppers.  So good.  The onions kicked the whole meal up a notch, making us almost have tears of joy as we ate.

We are all out of the homegrown onions we harvested this summer and have had to buy onions.  Well, no time like the present to begin thinking about next year's onion crop.  I buy onion plants from Dixondale Farms.  They are a family farming operation down in Carrizzo Springs, Texas that has been growing onions for 107 years.  (I think they have this onion-growing thing mastered!)  You can click that link above to check out their website.  I was looking at my catalog tonight and made my order.

Prior to five years ago, I had never really tried to grow onions, other than growing green onions.  Now I plant them every year.  The first thing you'll want to do is determine what type of variety works best in your area.  Since we are in the deep south, the Short Day Varieties work best for us.  I like to order the Short Day Sampler and I order two bundles.  Each bundle contains 50 - 75 onion plants.  The sampler is just that - in contains a mixture of 1015Y Texas Super Sweet, Texas Early White, and Red Creole onions.  It is very affordable at approximately $9 per sampler bundle.

I receive them in early to mid-January and get them in the ground shortly thereafter.  I have to give positive reviews to Dixondale Farms.  If you order from them, you can receive an email newsletter called "The Onion Patch" that keeps you up to date with proper care of onion plants to guarantee a bumper crop.  They also have onion recipes like the one I cut & pasted below:

Wow!  I have to try this.  I love a good grilled cheese sandwich, but adding grilled onions and mushrooms to it?  Goodness gracious!  Does that sound great?!  Can't wait to try it...