It’s been a pretty good gardening year, outside of a few mishaps. When the tomatoes really start coming on, that means onion harvest time here. A few weeks ago the onion tops laid over on the ground and started to dry out. I wanted them to hang out in the ground just a little longer but we got a bunch of rain that made their tops get mushy. So I made like an ant, before they rotted in the ground and picked them. Harvest is a neat time, it brings families together. The boys did most of the picking. After swinging them wildly at each other, they somehow all landed in the wheelbarrow. They did great, except for that half row of garlic…it’s MIA except for one little garlic head.

When I asked the kids about it they shrugged and said “Oh, yeah, we’ve seen them.”

“Where are the rest of them?”

*Sphnicker Sphnicker* “Couldn’t tell ya, Mom.”

Sometimes the less you know, the better. All I can say is, it must have been one heck of a battle. (It was probably nothing compared to when we play tomato baseball after the first hard freeze.) Anyway, that means, no garlic to dry and braid this year, just onions. Sniff. After the war ended, I took the load of onions to one of our four, three-sided sheds and laid the survivors on some wire mesh to dry.

What you want to remember when drying onions or garlic is, they need warm dry air circulating around them.

When the tops get good and dry…mine aren’t quite there. I braid them together like an old Mexican woman would braid garlic. (Just like in my dreams of Mexico.) If you don’t dream of Mexico, think of braiding hair, it’s really no different. Just start braiding and adding an onion, braiding and adding until your onions look like this.

Tie off the top somehow. Either by braiding the onion back into itself or with wire or string, onions don’t care how you do it. Here’s what the back looks like.

Nifty, isn’t it? They will hang out in my cellar until I use them this winter.

Look at them. Can’t you just smell the salsa?

Did you have a good onion crop this year?

Simply,

Sis