Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Onions

I'm a writer, and whenever I go to workshops on storytelling, someone is bound to talk about peeling back the layers of an onion to get at the core of a character or a story. It makes me crazy every time they say it.

Admittedly, I'm metaphor-impaired, but I know my onions. And if you peel back all the layers of the onion -- there's nothing left!

The onions this year are, on average, a little smaller than last year. Or maybe it's just that there's a wider range of sizes, from substantial to puny.

There are a number of likely explanations. Last year was overwhelmingly rainy, including during the critical phase when the onions are storing up all their energy in the bulb. This year, the rain was good EXCEPT during that critical couple of weeks. Also, the onion bed this year has had less compost added to it than last year's bed, some of it is in a more shady spot, and we did a LOT less weeding this year. All together, it makes me marvel that we got any crop at all.

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