Valentine's Day!

Garden Fresh Chow Mein

The best Valentine's Day gift is not chocolate. This may be depressing news to a friend who confided in a whisper to me last weekend that it was her favorite gift. I didn't want to burst her bubble. My favorite Valentine's Day gift is pictured to the immediate right. Can you spot it?

If that looks like a dish of homemade chow mein, points to you. That's exactly what it is. But that particular dish isn't the favored gift. It's what's in that dish. Look closely. Can you spot it? That dish contains two-three elements from my spring and summer gardening exploits. It's the garden that keeps on giving. Even in the dead of winter as I plan out the next spring and summer garden efforts, the 2022 garden is still paying off.

Dixondale Farms Onions

That garden gift is one of three vegetable packs that I prepared at the close of last summer's gardening efforts. Those packs include two chopped onions, courtsey of Dixondale Farms, the largest grower of onion plants in the USA. The packs also include anywhere from two-to-four chopped bell peppers and one or two chopped jalapeño peppers (seeds included), to give the finished creation a little kick. The packs also include the leaves produced by a prolific summer basil plant.

The creation of these winter packs is a fairly simple operation, but it does require a bit of time in the kitchen. This is where the process starts. The largest onions, which were hung to dry on a fence after a July harvest, are selected. So are the largest peppers. By late August and September, these bell peppers have taken on a pleasing red, orange or yellow hue. The jalapeño peppers are a bright red at this point in the summer garden season and are as spicy (hot) as they are going to get.

Summer Garden Peppers

Jalapeños are not the hottest peppers you can grow in the garden. But they are the best tasting in my humble opinion. The hotter peppers, which all grow well in this California climate, tend to be a tad bitter. This is all personal opinion, of course. There are hot pepper afficiandos who love the taste and jolt that comes from biting into a freshly harvested Ghost, Scorpion or Habanero flamethrower. That's just never been my style. To each his own.

Jalapeño peppers also tend to be the most prolific and easy to grow, which means I can hand out scads of them to neighbors and friends who love the jolt of summer garden heat. There were a lot to give away this past summer, thanks to the garden patrol efforts of a legendary kitten known as "The Mango." I've come to discover that the kitten I adopted from the Bradshaw Animal Shelter in Sacramento County last May not only chased a voracious army of rats out of my garden this past summer, he apparently did a lot more. Neighbors have confided in me that "The Mango" took this hunt into other yards with vegetable gardens, fruit trees, or both.

The Chop!

I did not receive any complaints about these visits. The neighbors loved these well-timed events. The army of rats that once feasted on these summer gardens did not. The end result was a string of successful garden efforts in every yard "The Mango" patrolled.

A food processor aided with the end-of-season chopping effort. The end result went into one-quart bags that went straight into the freezer. I have used two of these bags so far. I will most likely use the third at some point later this month or in March. The bagged peppers, hot peppers, onions and basil are perfect for stir fry dishes, soups, chili or any other dish complimented by summer gardening efforts. The only drawback will come when I finish off the last bag and wish I'd created a fourth or fifth chopped summer garden effort.

Finished Freezer Pack

Three is never enough.

There is a down side to preparing fresh summer vegetables that are chopped and frozen for future use. You do lose that fabulous crunch. But that signature smell of a summer vegetable garden is never too far away. Which is a nice thing to have in the kitchen on a cold and wet winter day.

Fence Post Onions!

Fence Post Onions!

What's this you say? You can actually grow onions on an ordinary fence post? A stick of wood? A perpendicular onion crop? Bunions on a barricade? Shallots on a shield? Of course you can! Would I lie to you?

Stay tuned for the book! "101 Easy and Simple Steps to Grow Onions on Fence Posts." Which would be a big waste of money. Although I have written a book, it's not about growing onions on fence posts. You cannot grow onions on fence posts. Yes, I am lying to you. Despite the visual evidence presented to your immediate right, I did not grow onions on a fence post.

Yes, I did grow onions. No, I did not grow them on a fence post or any other type of wood. However, the onions pictured on that fence post are, in fact, the onions that I set into the ground as young plants on a cold and dark day last February.

2022 Onion Crop

That said? Ye olde fence post is serving a valiant purpose. Besides it's primary function to keep garden-thieving rats out of the garden, it's also a great spot for CURING onions. That's exactly what is taking place right now, at this very moment. My fantastically large onion harvest (featuring red, yellow and white onions) has entered the "cure" stage following this weekend's harvest.

What is The Cure? It's an English rock band. But this isn't the cure you're looking for, nor is it the process I'm describing.

Curing is the process that takes place AFTER the onion crop is harvested. It's a period that can last for as long as two to four weeks and the end result is an onion crop and harvest that will last for months without spoiling. Onions that haven't been properly cured still taste fine. But, even after cooking, they can also be a bit rubbery. I know this from experience. I used two of these small onions in last night's garden soup creation. Even after simmering them for 30-minutes, they were still a tad rubbery.

Enormous Onion

But they still tasted great! Plus, they will taste even better after they've cured in our hot California summer weather for a month or two. That's the nice thing about onions. I can leave them right where they are and they will last until the next crop is planted.

The process of curing dries the onions out a bit. The skins that make up an onion change during this process and get a bit tougher. The sugar in a home-grown onion gets a tad sweeter. The longer these onions sit and cure, the better they get. These are all good results.

There are roughly 140 onions in this year's harvest. Am I going to eat 140 onions? Heavens, NO! That's what neighbors are for. Fortunately, I'm blessed to live around a number of families who all share one thing in common. They all love onions.

Rat Hunter Inspection

Thank goodness they all love Yellow Crookneck Squash as well, otherwise I'd be in trouble. They are all getting squash at the moment. Soon, they will all get onions. Tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and bush beans will soon follow. I keep my neighbors well stocked with fresh produce. I kind of like this role.

This crop of onions is the end result after planting one or two Intermediate Day Sampler packs provided by Dixondale Farms in Texas. These packs arrive as small starter plants, maybe two to three inches in length. They are planted in early to mid February. Once planted, they grow like gangbusters. Or, onions. By early to mid July, it's time to harvest.

I never really did experience a tremendous amount of success with growing onions until I finally followed the advice of others and turned to Dixondale Farms. The fact that this one operation has been providing onion plant starters to backyard growers large and small since 1913 should be enough to tell you that they are doing something right. If the act of growing onions is an art form, they are the American version of a da Vinci or Van Gogh.

Onions Will Make Him Cry

It's a fairly simple task, actually. Just use the Dixondale Farms map to determine if you live in an area designated for Long Day, Intermediate Day or Short Day Onions and place the appropriate order for the area of the country you call home.

How good are these onions? Very good. So good that they just might convince Robert Smith that he needs to do a rewrite on one of the key songs that made him famous.