Life On The Farm

Thursdays and Fridays at 7:49 am and 5:00pm

Hosted by Andy Griffin of Mariquita Farm in Watsonville.

KUSP HOMEPAGE

These are Purplette Cocktail Onions being grilled at one of our farm dinners.

Mariquita Farm home page

ONION PHOTO GALLERY

	Cipolline Onions, famous Italian onion for roasting.
	Stockton Red Onions
	Bianco di Maggio Onions
	Pakistani friend Momina making dal with lots of onions.
	Purplette Cocktail Onions
	Walla Walla Onions, a sweet variety
	Onion Jam, after caramelizing lots of chopped onions. Great for pizza and focaccia. link to onion recipes, including onion jam

July 2004 ARCHIVES of Andy's Life on the Farm Shows

July 1st, 2004

This is Andrew Griffin of Mariquita Farm with Life On The Farm. When someone asked me why they couldn't find a Maui onion in the farmers markets I suggested they try the Maui farmers market. We can't grow Maui onions here. It's not a wine thing, either, where some quasi-governmental board has fixed borders for regional appellations, though it may someday come to that. A higher authority decides where onion varieties can be grown: the sun.

World wide there are hundreds of onion varieties. A lot of people don't realize that many onion varieties will only perform reliably where growing conditions mimic the environment in which they originally evolved. Sure, providing good fertility, adequate water, and a well-drained bed in a weed-free garden are essential, but to form a plump bulb mature onion plants need to be stimulated by the right amount of warm sunlight.

Latitude determines the length of time the sun shines down. Maui lies along 21 degrees north latitude, too far south for her sweet onion to be well adapted to our conditions in K.U.S.P.'s listening area between 35 and 38 degrees. You can take the Maui onion out of Hawaii but you can't take Hawaii out of the onion. Happily, there are plenty of excellent onion varieties well adapted to our own growing area. For a photo gallery of onions that won't do well here click on the Life On The Farm link at K.U.S.P dot org. For K.U.S.P. this is Andrew Griffin.

copyright 2004 Andrew Griffin

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More about Mariquita Farm: Website

More about Andy's writings: Ladybug Letter Website

Andy's Vegetable Photo Gallery: hundreds of vegetable and farming photos

A-Z Vegetable Recipes