Sun Onions

This appeared in the February 4, 2021 edition of The Fish Wrap.

The humble onion has been cultivated for at least 7,000 years, favored for it’s flavour and durability in storage and transport. Ancient Egyptians used onions in burials, viewing the concentric rings as symbols of eternal life. The first European settlers brought onions with them to North America, only to find that they were already in wide use in Native American cooking.

Onions are classified based on how much light is needed for them to ‘bulb-up.’ Short-day onions form bulbs at 10-12 hours per day of sunlight, intermediate at 12-14 (recommended for our area) and long-day onions at 14+. Sweet varieties (like Vidalia onions) are short-day onions and are grown in the south over the winter. But you can’t call them Vidalia onions unless they are grown within 75 miles of Vidalia, Georgia, by federal law!

Onions have two growth stages. The vegetative stage is a time of rapid cell division. During this stage, the onion grows all the cells it will have and puts on leaves above ground. The leaves correspond to the rings of the onion so the number of leaves equals the number of rings in the finished onion. Day length comes into play in the bulbing stage. The plant’s preferred hours of daylight triggers the bulbing-up. The plant pumps nutrients and water into the cells and the bulb, with all its rings, forms.

Onions are members of the Allium genus of flowering plants that also includes garlic, shallots, leeks and chives. Onions can be enjoyed raw in pickles, cooked into your favorite savory dish or breaded and fried in rings! They have many health benefits, being high in antioxidants which helps reduce the chances of cancer, diabetes and heart disease (and vampires). And onions are powerhouses of vitamin C, a key nutrient for strong immunity!