Cure

While dry, cloudless, long, sunny days have me feeling like the summer heat may be eternal, the harvest this week signals turnover from early to late summer, and hints at the arrival of cooler, damper autumn days. I've always been able to revel in the summer heat but after bringing in heavy harvests all week I'm ready for the fall, and everything that comes with it. On New England farms, the fall is largely a time for bulk harvest. Fields of storage crops begin to mature and harvest crews settle in to long days in one field, picking carrots, or potatoes, or any other winter storage crop. This week, I led a crew of onion harvesters as the farm began to bring in the first of its onion crop.

The onion harvest is fast. These plants were growing in plastic so my crew and I approached the field one row at a time, systematically pulling onions from each hold in the rows of black plastic. Quickly, stacks of onion-filled crates lined the field and we worked together to move the crates from the field to the truck bed. Afterwards we carefully drove the precariously stacked truck, practically dripping with onion greens, to the greenhouse where the curing racks had been prepared. Fire-line style, we moved the onions one last time from truck to table where they'll be kept.

Just a few months ago, the onion seedlings were growing in the greenhouse waiting to be transplanted, and now the mature plants are spread out on the greenhouse tables, drying and curing for storage. The same compounds that sting your eyes when you cut up an onion on your kitchen counter are the ones that give the vegetable its storability. Some onions will stay edible for up to a year after harvest, as long as they're stored properly. Tons and tons of onions now inhabit the greenhouse for our winter use- just the beginning of a long process of harvest, storage, and use in the winter months.

Also pictured below are some cucumber plants suffering from the summer drought, one of our big beautiful fields, and myself (doing my best to endure the midday heat!)