Organic Onion

Good Onion and Artichoke week!

Organic onion,
"The onion, whether we like it or not, is an existentialist allegory of life. You peel it, layer after layer, hoping that at some point you'll reach the secret in its core. However, what you always have left in your hand is another layer to peel, and another one. In the end you remove the last layer, and the secret of life is revealed to you: there is nothing there. After you've awakened from the delusion and found that the naked truth is naked in itself, you realize that the real thing about life is the process and not the everlasting search after a meaning to hang on to. I know, it's a little bit of bullshit, but you can fill two pages about the onion...." (Yaakov Maor, freestyle translation)
Ha ha ha... I wonder if he was in an עסל day or a בסל day...
I happened to read this when we just planted green onions and leeks, the two of them, along with the garlic, belong to the Liliaceae family.

So what is an onion actually? The onion is a plant organ, a bulb under the ground, that exists in certain plants in order to store nutrients and water during the rainy season, which the plant can use during the dry season. A good example is the Hatzav, which has the strength to flower at the end of summer due to its powerful bulb.
The garden onion is a biannual crop. In the first year the plant grows the bulb (the onion that we eat)and in the second year, after it is prepared "financially" :), it grows a tall column with flowers to provide for the next generation. We call it "maturity" or "responsibility" in humans but in plants it is called to bolt. 

Of course, we are not interested in this process because growing a column reduces the value of the onion, so we must pay attention and pick it before it attempts to begin the next generation. That means being alert during season changes, because if the plant feels distress it will, like any good parent, first think of the kids and use all of its strength to grow the flower column and seeds rather than investing in the onion.
There are many kinds of onion - green, purple, white, yellow, red, beit alfa and Ashkelonian...

Ashkelonian onion - yes, this onion from Ashkelon is actually very famous across the world, it is the shallot or scallion.
In Latin it is called Alium Askelonikum and the French and Belgian people consume one hundred thousand tons of it each year.
The shallot arrived to Ashkelon from Asia when it was a busy port town and growers in Israel began to grow it. The Romans discovered it here and took it back with them to Rome and from there it continued... nowadays, most the Ashkelonian onion in Israel is imported :(

The history is long...
The Israelites, walking in the desert, longed for onion and garlic, together with the fish, zucchini and watermelons that were abundant in Egypt.
The Pharaohs paid wages to the construction workers of the pyramids with sacks of onions. More than one strike was resolved with sacks of onions.
Three trains of onions were sent to the union army in the American civil war after General Ulysses S. Grant, notified that he would not move his army without onions..... Also Alexander the Great kept a menu rich in onion for his soldiers and Greek athletes strengthened their bodies by eating onion and drinking its juice.
On the other hand, in Jewish culture onion is not so important. There is a Yiddish saying as follows: "א-ציבעלע-גנב" (a thief of onion) and the meaning is that although stealing is a bad offense, it is only an onion, and there is no point to make a big deal of it.
In Arabic there is a saying, "Yom asal, yom basal" Asal is honey and represents wealth, the basal (onion) represents poverty.
The world consumes 60 million tons of onions per year. That's about 8 kg per person per year. The average Israeli consumes 12.5 kg per year and as we move eastward in the world more onion is consumed, moving westward less is eaten.
That is interesting. It is also interesting that men consume about 40 % more onion than women...
The onion has always been attributed with many health benefits: Preventing colds, intestinal parasite treatment, heart disease prevention, delay of the development of atherosclerosis, diabetes prevention, and more ...

There is no kitchen without it, thousands of recipes would not exist without it. It can be fried, baked, steamed, stuffed, wrapped, eaten fresh.... and yet, perhaps because of the tears when you cut it, or perhaps because of the considerable weeding needed to grow it (it has sparse foliage which allows weeds to grow under it ), it is a symbol of dullness (poverty?)...

Long live the onion!
Have a good week, green, growing and not too hot.
Yours,
Maggie and the garden team

We can expect in our boxes this week (draft only):

Artichoke
Lettuce
Green onions :)
Purple Cabbage
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Cherry tomatoes
Zucchini
Yellow peppers
Young broccoli leaves or cauliflower leaves or Kyle ....
 
Larger ones also:
Beets
Parsley Root
And Ramiro peppers
 
Fruit baskets:
Sweet Melon and red grapefruit