PEAS Farm: Graupelbopolus and the planting of the onions!

Missoula weather in the spring is the very definition of fickle.  It will be snowing one minute, sunny the next, then rainy, then sunny, then graupeling, then sunny again.  Graupel you say?  Just what in heck is that?  Well, if you follow the weather via Missoula’s beloved weatherman Mark Heyka, you already know the answer to that question.  If you don’t, here is wikipedia’s take on graupel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel.  Wednesday was one of the most epic graupel days I have seen in Missoula ever, huge graupel fell from the sky at an incredible rate.  Fortunately, graupel, also known as soft hail or snow pellets, doesn’t cause any of the damage real hail can to young crops in the fields or to new fruit tree blossoms.  So, next time it is graupeling take a second to get out and enjoy our crazy spring weather here in Graupelbopolus!

This week, between and during downpours of graupel, we are in the process of transplanting all of our onion starts out into the fields.  From sweet Walla Walla’s to storage onions, each year we plant thousands and thousands of onions, and come September those onions will be ready for harvest and curing in our barn.  Since onions are an amazing storage crop that need no refrigeration, many of those onions (usually around 8000 pounds or so) are donated to Missoula Food Bank.

Onions are easy to store, super healthy, and full of Vitamin C, which is why they were used by early seafaring explorers as a way to stave off scurvy!   Look forward to some of those sweet onions in your CSA come late July/early August!