We sometimes think should call ourselves Potomac Allium Farms--alliums are the onion and garlic family. Right now we are pulling green garlic. This is garlic with all the juicy pungent flavor and no sections yet, so you can cut it like an onion. This only lasts a few weeks and then the separate cloves get their own skins and the garlic is mature and ready to be cured. We always try to grow enough garlic to last us all the way through the winter but we haven't managed it yet.
We are seeing the first sweet onions, just about ready to pluck from the top of the ground. Unlike carrots and beets, onions sort of rise up to the surface and sit on the top, showing off. You just reach down and pick them up. For a few weeks the tops will be a vigorous green and then they will start to turn brown and that's when we pull them to store them in the cooler.
And then there are leeks and scallions, also extremely flavorful and satisfying. This is the beginning of high allium season. We feel lucky that they grow so well on our farm. There are lots of dread diseases and nasty pests that plague alliums, but mostly they leave us alone. This spring there were disgusting worms eating the roots of the onions when it was cold and wet out, but as soon as the hot weather came, the worms went away.
