Tears In the Kitchen

 After harvesting all of the onions in the garden, we brought them inside - out of the hot humid weather where they'd surely be rotten by now.  The sit in our "onion curing room" which doubles as our parlor when we don't have a tarp on the floor and a baker's rack full of onions sitting in the middle of it.  The ceiling fan overhead is on high and has been circulating air for about a month now. We've been quite fortunate to not lose a single onion.  Oh, one or two has begun to get a little soft, but if you peel off the outer layer, everything beneath it is fine.

On Saturday, it was a rainy day and we figured it would be beneficial to begin processing some of the onions.  With so many to choose from, we set our criterion for selecting the first onions to process.  We decided we would begin with choosing any that had the beginnings of a soft spot.  We found only two.  Then we selected all the small onions.  They were put into baskets and brought to the kitchen.

The first step in processing is to pull off the loose skin.  Then cut off the neck and the roots.  Then slice in half and remove the outer, papery skin.  Here's what you're left with.  The other thing that you must contend with is tears.

Finally, we chop them up into chunks.  These chunks will be perfect for cooking with.  We use an old chopper that has seen better days, but it still works like a charm.  I would love to know how many pounds of onions, peppers, and potatoes over the years it has cubed.  It's quite loud when you slam down the top.  Tricia wears ear plugs while doing it.

Just getting started, but we have a long way to go.

After working for a bit and putting a bunch of onion chunks in a big plastic bag for freezing, we decided to take a break for a week or two.  There's no rush for doing this as long as the onions cure and hold well.  Truth is, we are planning to take the bull to the slaughterhouse this summer.  It would be a doggone shame to have the deep freeze full of onions when it could be storing beef.

Just this little bit of chopping yielded a whopping 17 1/4 pounds of chopped onions.  Imagine how much time we've saved on the back side.  No more prepping and chopping onions and crying while you are cooking.  We've taken care of those tasks on the frontside.

Look at the onion curing room following chopping up 17 1/4 pounds of onions.  We didn't even put a dent in the onion inventory.

That's okay, we use a lot of onions in our kitchen.  The only slight rush to clearing this area is that it won't be too terribly long before we will be harvesting garlic and we'll need this area for curing garlic here.

Before And After

I had a big double row of zinnias growing on the last row of the garden before the sugar cane.  For months it gave us beautiful technicolor blooms.  Tricia has been picking bouquets and putting them in a vase in the kitchen.  It was my first trial in planting flowers in the vegetable garden.  Last year I planted zinnias right outside the garden in the holes of some cinder blocks that line the ditch that borders the garden.  They did nicely and at the end of the season, I saved the flower heads for seed.  I really didn't know how well they would germinate, but Good Golly, Miss Molly, I think every last seed grew.  I think I'll plant them again next year. 

Well, last week, in one of the earliest freezes I can remember, temperatures dipped into the mid 20's and zapped the zinnias.  In a stunning before and after shot, you can compare the photo above with the same flowers a day after the deep freeze hit.  From delightful to dull in a very short time.

But the flowers weren't the only thing that the freeze claimed.  It also obliterated our okra.  We have harvested loads and loads of okra this year.  We ate it very often and have some frozen for gumbos, too.  It produced for months and was still producing until the north wind freeze dried it.  Here is a photo of the last two plants left standing before I chopped them down.

We often talk about planting seeds in the garden.  Once a plant runs its course, what do you do.  I want to talk about that briefly.  In the past I would just uproot the dead or dying plants and toss them in the compost pile.  That's not a bad thing to do, but there is a better alternative.  Over the years I started to leave the root system intact. 

Okra grows into a large plant.  Some of the okra plants were approaching three inches across at the base of the plant!  Instead of pulling the plant up, I use a cheap but effective pruning saw I bought for next to nothing at Harbor Freight.  I saw the plant top off right above ground level.  Once I'm done, you can't even tell a plant was even there.

So what does that gain me?  A lot.  The roots will quickly rot and the decomposed organic matter will amend the garden soil.  It opens up passageways for rain water and air flow.  The tunnels that the roots opened will help earthworms as they move throughout the soil and finally the roots will feed soil microbes.  Overall, it is a win-win to leave the roots in the soil.

The okra plants themselves are another story.  Some of them were ten feet tall.  After I chopped them down, I piled them in the back of the garden.  I'll cover them with piles of wood chips mixed with some cow poop and allow them to decompose for a year or so.

Once things in the garden were vibrant with a multitude of colors from bright zinnias to the green okra.  Now, everything is dull and drab and dead.  Not for long, though.  The sugar snap peas are growing and are beginning to trellis.  Soon they'll be blooming and there will be more color in the garden.