Onion dissapointment/fiasco

So you might remember that I was super proud and excited about the onion crop last year, lots of huge and perfect onions. Even though we harvested them during a wet period, they dried out and kept really well right through the winter.

Onions from summer 2008, many of the yellows weighed more than a pound each!

Well this year the crop was not nearly so impressive, I blame my planting them too close together, in a shadier and less nutrient rich section of the garden. All three factors ganged up for a smaller than hoped for crop.

But to add insult to injury, after I pulled the onions and had them laying on the ground to cure, I decided to put a layer of remay (spun polyester floating row cover) over the top to keep them from getting sunburned. It was really hot, in the 90's this week. When I went back that evening to take a look at them, the remay had made it so warm underneath that many of the onions had literally cooked. When we picked them up they were soft, when we cut them open they were transluscent and smelled like roasted onions. Bummer. We picked them up and put them on a screen to finish drying in a shadier spot but I think many were ruined already.

The entire crop from 2009, half the size as last year and probably half of these are COOKED!