Code Word: Red Candy Apple



The "Package"

Psst! Hey buddy? Know that "thing" we were talking about? The "package" has arrived my friend. Expect a visit from Mr. X at any time now. Know what I'm talking about?

 

Of course you have no idea of what I'm talking about! I have no idea of what I'm talking about! And if you can understand what I don't -- well -- perhaps I need to add a second cyst to my skull so it can make friends with the first.

 

ONIONS!

I am a bit hesitant from doing my best Steve Martin impression by screaming to the whole world: "The New Onions are Here! The New Onions are Here!" Because, as Martin so artfully acted in The Jerk, "things are going to start happening to me now." And they did. But not quite in the way he expected.

 

You see, if you recall last year's madcap onion escapade, there's a good reason to be worried. Yes -- the 2014 crop of new onion starter plants has arrived from Dixondale Farms in (flat as a) Pancake, Texas. Unlike last year, the onion plants arrived on time and in excellent condition.

 

Perhaps SMERSH has turned its attention to other endeavors.

 

Onion plants, you say? Not onion bulbs? That would be correct. I'm done with planting onion bulbs in October and hoping for a good harvest come next June. Sometimes that harvest can be good. Sometimes it can be bad. But that's not the case with onion starter plants grown by our fine onion-loving friends at Dixondale Farms. They've been at this trade for a decade or nine. They know what they're doing.

 

Onion Plant Starters-Dixondale Farms

Suffice to say -- a box of onion starter plants from Dixondale Farms has never let me or the wife that is Venus down. We plant a lot of onions in the Bird Back 40. That's because we go through our share of onions. You can find those onions in every jar of lip-smacking Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa. You can find them onions in every jar of tomato sauce we can. And you can find them in nearly every summer and fall meal we make and consume.

 

The arrival of our box of onion starters also provides a good excuse to dedicate a weekend afternoon to digging up those Bird Back 40 planter boxes and adding all sorts of amendments that are good for the soil and good for the onions to boot. I can't begin to tell you the satisfaction of digging into a raised gardening bed only to find a nest of big, fat, red earthworms wriggling around inside.

 

Soil Amendment Time!

It means that box of fish bait that I added last summer to improve the soil sailed right through the winter months. It means that I was judicious in my use of fertilizer, and didn't over-fertilize to the point where I chased the earthworms into the next yard. Night Crawler worms aren't just good eatin' for catfish -- they spice up the local raised gardening bed as well.

 

But I digress.

 

The onion starter plants we put into the soil this year are exactly the same that we put into the ground last year. Why do the same crop over and over again? Because the fine folks at Dixondale Farms only offer three varieties of onions for Intermediate Day locations. And Sacramento happens to be SMACK DAB in the middle of an intermediate day location.

 

Super Star Onions (Delicious)

But, suffice to say, those time-tested varieties of Candy, Red Candy Apple and Super Star have never let us down. Each bunch of all three varieties delivers a whopper of yellow, red and white onions. Some of those onions wind up on the doorsteps of our onion-loving neighbors, this is true, but the vast majority is put to good use in the Bird Family kitchen.

 

We get so many of these onions that I'm actually SHAMED when I'm forced to head out to the local grocery store to actually BUY onions. Unfortunately, our harvest doesn't last for the entire 12 months of the year. There comes a point, late in winter my friends, when (I'm ashamed to admit) we must buy our onions like everyone else at the local supermarket.

 

Venus Plants Onions!

Oh, the shame of it all.

 

Are store bought onions as good as home-grown onions? Does Superman enjoy Kryptonite? OF COURSE NOT! That's why we plant onions. Because, well, home grown onions are just darned good and darned good for you.

 

And so -- with great trepidation -- I deliver the news that the 2014 onion plant starters have not only arrived -- they've all been planted.

 

Garden Patrol Cat with Chew Toy Dog

This means if some nefarious character attempts to dig them up? They first must do battle with Lenny, the Maine Coon Garden Patrol Cat. Lenny, at last report, weighed in at svelte 25 lbs. It's safe to say that Lenny enjoys his meals. And every meal that Maine Coon giant can get his greedy little paws on.

 

You have been warned.

From San Diego With Onions

007 Likes Onions in his Martinis

OK. So it's not quite as flashy as From Russia with Love. It may not even contain the intrigue, action, drama, special effects (OK, none of that). It doesn't even have an Auric Goldfinger or Rosa Klebb -- though SMERSH (Death to Spies) just might be involved here. What this blog posting does have, however, is a mystery. It's a deep, dark, somewhat smelly mystery that might never be solved.

Not even by the great 007, James Bond.

Onion Plant Starters

I bring you the case of the Missing Madcap Onions. The no-show scallions. The ghostly gibbons. OK, that's enough. They are like the onions you see pictured to your left. These onions are now planted in the Bird Back 40. There are three different varieties here, representing red, yellow and white.

So what's the mystery you ask? I'll tell you. The onions sets you see planted in the Bird Back 40 are "replacement" onions. They represent a second, rush shipment from Dixondale Farms in Texas. As for the first shipment? Where is that first shipment? Nobody quite really knows. And that's were the mystery begins.

It was South Natomas gardening zen-master Nels Christensen who first suggested last fall that we "tag team" on our order of onions this year. It made sense. Why pay for two shipping charges instead of one? Plus, the onions get somewhat cheaper when you buy more of them. So, by combining the order we paid less for them and avoided an additional shipping charge. As Wile E. Coyote once summarized: Our thinking was "genius."

Online Tracking for Onion Plant Starters

And then, the United States Postal Service got involved.

I love online tracking. I'm not sure who started it first, but everyone uses it now. It allows you to track a package or special order as it makes its stops here and there before arriving at your front door. Online tracking even informs you when that package will arrive at your front door.

In the case of Nels Christensen and Bill Bird, online tracking told us our 2013 shipment of onions from Dixondale Farms had arrived at the West Sacramento Postal Sort Facility on February 9th, a Saturday. With this information, we could expect a Monday or Tuesday delivery.

Super Star (White) Onions

The package never arrived.

This prompted a worried call from Nels to the West Sacramento USPS office where he received the response of: "Onions? We don't have any onions."

It seems our onions had vanished. Nobody was quite sure where they went. Five long days went by and still no onions, and worse yet, no response from the USPS. But, on February 15th, a single-word item appeared in our online tracking system: "Missent." Well! Where did they send them we wondered? Mars? Why would it take five days to locate a box of fresh onion plants? They'd certainly be stinking up a storm right about now.

Red Candy Apple Onion Starters

More information appeared in our onion online tracking that very same day. The missing box of onions was reported at the West Sacramento sort facility again. Well, this was good news! Right? This meant we could expect delivery by the next day!

Or so we thought. Two days later we learned that our wayward batch of smelly onion plant starters had been shipped to San Diego. It's not Mars, per se, but gardening is rather local. Nels and I don't have garden plots in San Diego. We have them in Sacramento, Natomas to be exact.

Replacement Box of Onion Starters

So how did the onions wind up in San Diego? That's a good question. Not even the USPS could tell us. In fact, if you called the USPS sort facility in San Diego they would claim: "Onions? We don't have no stinkin' onions," or something that effect.

You would think that the online tracking system would be updated with the message of "Really, really Missent," or "We screwed up bad there, bud." But nary a word crossed the online tracking system for four days. At that point? Our missing box of onion plants was on the move again. This time they were destined for  Carrizo Springs, Texas. That is where they had been shipped from originally two weeks ago. But instead of turning around and heading back to Sacramento, the USPS decided to send our quite-ripe box of onion plant starters back to the grower.

Venus Plants

Why? Good question! I told you this was a mystery! Ah -- but it gets even better.

I emailed Dixondale Farms with the request for a photo of our missing box of onion plant starters because I wanted to see the damage that had been done to it after two weeks of moving from one USPS sort facility to another. Dixondale Farms emailed back with the response: "We can't. The box was empty."

So where is that first shipment of onions? We can only deduce that someone, somewhere got a surprise delivery of half-dead onion starters with the code names of "Candy Apple Red" and "Super Star." And this person is now wondering if they've become the unwitting target of SMERSH (Death to Spies). Think about it for a moment. How many people get deliveries of smelly, half dead onion plant starters? Would you be a tad bit concerned?

Where are the onions? Rosa Klebb might know...

I'm pleased to report that during this Great Onion Adventure, the good folks at Dixondale Farms rushed a second delivery to our front door and this one actually arrived, on time, and in fairly good condition. The onions are planted. The onions are growing. And there's nothing quite like an onion starter from Dixondale Farms. Venus and I planted our first bunch of onion plant starters last spring, and we were munching on a whopper of a harvest through late fall and early winter.

You'll even find a bit of "Super Star" and "Candy Apple Red" in our moderately famous "Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa." Yeah, those onions are THAT good.

But as for that first shipment of onion plants? You're guess is as good as mine, 007.

Onion Ring King and Queen of North Natomas!

Homer Bucket of Onions: Partial Harvest

It's about that time of year when the wife that is Venus and I play this little game of "let's make dinner." That is -- we will tell one another that we want to make a particular dish, but need to purchase things such as "tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, onions, green onions, etc."

Of course -- this is our version of a ginormous joke -- since we have ginormous amounts of these things protruding from the summer garden beds. We've reached that Nirvana time of year when every carrot is at least a foot long and two inches thick, each tomato weighs at least a pound and is loaded with flavor and one green onion is larger than the bunches of five or six green onions sold at the local grocery store.

A Garden Whopper: The Candy Onion

In short? Gardening life is good. It's very good. Every meal features something fresh. And if it doesn't? Someone made a royally bad mistake. Even something a simple as a frozen pizza tastes better with extra toppings of chopped up bell peppers and green onions. And WHY are you eating frozen pizza when you can whip up a garden fresh soup featuring a hodge-podge of fresh this and that?

The frozen pizza can sit and wait in the freezer.

It is indeed harvest time on the Bird Ranch for Wayward Heirloom Tomatoes. The heirlooms are popping. The squash is prolific. Bell peppers make for a sweet and tasty treat. But one of the bigger successes just came out of the ground just last month: one of the largest and sweetest onion harvests we've ever had the pleasure of taking part it.

Bunches and Bunches of Candy Onions

No matter where you turn in the Bird GarageMahal, you're going to run into a Homer five gallon bucket of onions here -- or another five gallon bucket there. Or you just might run smack dab into onion monsters that are hanging and curing from an exposed set of rafters. Short and sweet? We got onions. Lots and lots of onions.

I would have to characterize this year's "onion experiment" with Dixondale Farms in (flat as a) Pancake, Texas a tremendous success. I have never grown onions this huge or this tasty before, and never before in the numbers that we experienced this year. Sure -- there were a few "duds in the bunch." But that's to be expected with just about anything when it comes to gardening (at least for yours truly). But as I began to pull mammoth whopper after mammoth whopper from the ground, I knew this was one of them rare experiments that had totally succeeded.

Onion Starters in February

Excuse me while I cry for a moment. This just doesn't happen often.

Unlike past years, when I would plants onion and garlic bulbs at about the same time of year (October), I waited to order my onion crop. It wouldn't arrive until early February. In the meantime, I educated myself on what I had done wrong in the past. I would come to discover that no onion is like the other. All of them are different. Some grow well in some areas. Others do not.

It was during this research that it dawned on me that purchasing that package of onion bulbs from my local nursery in September or October wasn't the wisest of decisions. Sometimes those packages contained onion bulbs that were not intended for, nor would grow to a large size, in the Sacramento Valley. Why would a nursery or Big Box store do that? Simple! It's the same question as, "why would they sell that Hass Avocado tree" when they know it will perish in our cold Sacramento climate?" Or, "why are they selling tomato plants in February when tomato planting season isn't for another two months?"

Red Candy Apple Onions

Simple! It's because people who don't know any better (see: Bill Bird) will happily fork over $20 for it. And if it dies? That's OK too! Because the people who sold you the wrong kind of onion bulbs or that avocado tree that kicked the bucket know all too well that you'll be back in another couple of months to fork over another $20 in a vain and wasted attempt to correct the problem.

It's called "marketing for dummies."

I finally got around to listening to the patient advice of a South Natomas vegetable gardener who has been at this game a little bit longer than I have, and gave into his suggestion of giving Dixondale Farms the old college try. After reading, and more importantly, understanding the different between "long-day, intermediate-day, short-day" and "Green Day" onions, I finally understood what I'd been doing wrong.

Green Day Onions. KIDDING!!! They're CANDY!

Note: To the uninitiated, there is no such thing as "Green Day" onions. If you ask for them at a nursery, you're likely to earn a howl of laughter or a blank stare. "Green Day" isn't an onion. "Green Day" is a rock-n-roll band.

Short and sweet? If you plant the right kind of onion bulb or onion start, fertilize, water and care for it properly, you will be rewarded with monster-sized onions. Monster sized onions mean monster sized onion rings -- made with a fresh beer batter.

Sure! You can use your onion crop for healthy things like salads and such! There's nothing wrong like that! But only I can tell you the wonderful taste behind taking a healthy thing like a freshly grown onion, dipping it into a batter and dropping it into a vat of hot oil!

Mix in rings procured from a home grown Super Star white onion, add in some beer, flour and salt, and you've got a meal fit for a King or Queen.

Simple Beer Batter Recipe

1 cup beer (the better the beer, the better the onion ring)

1 cup flour

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon onion or garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Onion Rings in Waiting

Mix all items, minus the vegetable oil, together in a bowl until smooth. If the batter does not take on the consistency of a pancake batter, add more beer.

Cut off both ends of an onion (preferably home grown), and proceed to cut into slices anywhere from a half inch to an inch thick. Separate slices into individual rings.

Fill frying pan with raised edges with a half inch of oil and heat to medium-low. Proceed to dip each onion ring into the beer batter, using tongs to add directly to hot oil. Turn when edges turn light brown. Remove from heat when both sides are light brown and drain. Add additional salt, if needed, for taste, or a favorite dipping sauce!

What Day is it Sacramento?

Onion Bed After Planting-Bird Back 40

The answer is "Intermediate-Day." The answer is always "Intermediate-Day" no matter what time of the day or week it is. You see -- this is a trick question.

How dare I do such a thing!

The raised planting bed to your immediate right contains one of our latest outdoor gardening projects (there are indoor projects that I will get too later, of course). What are those little things that look like tiny matchsticks in the ground?

They are onions.

Onions? You mean, green onions? NOPE! These are going to be -- hopefully I might add -- regular sized onions in a few months. Remember what I told you about gardening and experimentation?

This is one of those experiments.

Onions in a Box? How Quaint!

It's also called "following advice." South Natomas grower Nels Christensen has been pushing me to try his grand onion planting adventure for a couple of years now. When he delivered one of the fattest red onions I'd ever seen to my front doorstep last year -- I thought he might be onto something.

Fat onions = Good times.

This year -- my onions arrived in a neatly packed box (pictured above left). In past years? I have always relied upon onion sets. These weren't always reliable. Although they did produce some whoppers -- they were usually far and few between. Most could be considered disappointing and I had always wondered what I might be doing wrong.

For the uninformed -- onion sets are small bulbs less than 1" in diameter. In the Sacramento Valley, they are usually planted in late fall – about the same time as garlic bulbs – to produce big onions. They can also be planted in the early spring to produce green (salad) onions. For me? It didn't matter when or where I planted them. I usually wound up with a few whoppers and lots and lots of green onions.

Box Packed with Onion Starter Plants-Dixondale Farms

But after Nels dropped off the fattest red onion I'd seen come out of a backyard garden -- well -- that kind of peaked my interest a bit. Nels has got a bit of a head start on me in this gardening game -- and it's never a good idea to ignore good advice (although I sometimes do).

This year -- I decided to do something a little different. I passed on the sets offered up at local nurseries and took a flier on a place called Dixondale Farms -- a big onion operation out of central Texas. It's near the town of Pancake, and by looking at several photos of the operation in question, I wondered if the town earned it's name due to the fact that the surrounding land is as flat as a -- uh -- you know.

It was on the Dixondale Farms website where I learned I'd been making a series of blunders regarding my onion plantings. As it turns out? Not all onions are created equal. In the United States, there are three different classifications of onions: Long-Day, Intermediate-Day and Short-Day.

Venus planting Candy Apple Red Variety

If you make the mistake of planting a Long Day variety in a zone set aside for Intermediate-Day or Short-Day onions? According to Dixondale Farms -- you're in a world of hurt. You're going to get a few whoppers and lots of small green onions.

This had a ring of truth to it -- at least for me. Sacramento is officially classified in the Intermediate-Day zone. That's news to me, since I had no clue these zones existed. Worse yet, I would come to find out that most onion sets sold at nurseries are Long-Day zone varieties. It means that no matter how good your soil, water and fertilizer regimen is: you're going to get a few whoppers and lots of smallish green onions.

I'm not going to go into the science of it all -- because I do my best not to bore people to death on this blog (Hey! WAKE UP!). But if you're really into onions -- and want to "read all about it" as they say -- I suggest you spend 30-45 minutes on the Dixondale Farms website. Plus -- those youtube videos they host are really campy.



Dixondale Farms youtube Page



If you ever wondered what happened to Jed Clampett and the Beverly Hillbillies -- now you know (no disrepect intended there, Jed). These people know their onions.

So -- bottom line? In the Bird Back 40 this year the wife that is Venus and I have planted three different varieties of Intermediate-Day onions: Candy, Red Candy Apple and Super Star. They were not shipped as sets, either. These arrived as living plants -- fresh from the field -- each tightly wrapped bundle containing anywhere from 50-75 onion starters.

Do the math people. If experience a success rate of just 50% -- that's nearly 100 onions. Do you really think we're going to eat 100 onions? Plus -- I've been assured by Nels and others who use Dixondale Farms that the success rate is much higher.

Onions Ready for Transplanting!

These onions -- which required an investment of less than $20 (free shipping too -- these people don't muss around) -- were planted in three different raised beds on the day that they arrived. They have already taken root in our mild winter weather here on the Left Coast and are growing like -- well -- onions.

So -- if you happen to see a North Natomas couple shedding more than a few tears later this summer around onion harvest time -- don't be sad. You'll know this is one of those rare experiments that actually worked.

The "Mother" of all Seed Stores

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein didn't do much for his own people, but at least he had the good faith to contribute to American slang, when he promised U.S. troops the "Mother" of all battles during the first Gulf War.

American language and slang hasn't been the same since he uttered that "Mother" statement, and we've since been treated to the "Mother" of all sales, or the "Mother" of all storms even the "Mother" of all tomatoes.

Add another "Mother" to that list -- as in the Mother of all Seed Stores -- and Lockhart Seed is just that and more.

Sacramento Bee "writer" (when are we going to add "Editor" to that title?) Debbie Arrington first tipped me to the existence of this wonderful store a couple of weeks ago in the Home and Garden section of the Bee. You can read the article here.

Now, I like to think my knowledge of valley towns and places is pretty darn good. I've only spent ALL of my 45 years here. I know Fresno, Madera and Tulare Counties like the back of my hand thanks to my days of zipping around in a clown car for KMPH NewsRadio. I can tell you where you can find the best dish of Chorizo and Eggs (La Cocina on McKinley Blvd. in Fresno), the best deep-fried Calzone (Dicicco's) and the best pizza known to mankind (Zelda's Deep Dish pizza in Sacramento).

But I had no IDEA and no CLUE that a place like Lockhart Seed even existed. There's no excuse for that. They've only been around, and in the same downtown Stockton location, for something like eight decades. They've served generations of San Joaquin Valley farmers and are now making a big dent in that backyard gardening effort.

To put it short and sweet: Lockhart Seed has it all -- everything under the sun -- when it comes to the subject of seeds. You want onions? How about ten varieties? Is that enough? Pumpkin seeds? Corn? White, yellow, purple or red? What about lettuce? Okra? Spinach? Cabbage? Carrots? Radishes? Lockhart Seed has row after row after row of packaged seeds (not pictured), or you can buy in bulk from these shelves behind the main counter.

If you don't have the kind of land required for large planting efforts, not a problem. Lockhart Seed offers row after endless row after endless row of small garden packets for the backyard gardener. It's the type of display that will bring tears of joy to the average gardener, and I guarantee a visit to Lockhart Seeds will leave the wallet just a tad lighter. Of course, if you're into large-scale gardening efforts, I imagine that that these packages of Jalapeno Pepper seeds will be more than enough to satisfy your demand for what has been sometimes described as the "Mother" of all hot peppers.

Lockhart Seed isn't your average store. It's not necessarily a nursery, although you can find things such as fertilizer and soil there. It's not a Home Depot or some other big box store offering row upon row of gardening tools and other gardening implements, although you will find those items there as well.

In short, Lockhart Seed is a SEED store. We don't have many of those left. As a matter of fact, there's just one left on the West Coast. And that is Lockhart Seed. And while they offer all types and varieties of seed for every vegetable and flower under the sun, they have a leg up on other seed outlets. Lockhart Seed carries varieties that grow extremely well in our South, Central and North Valley locations. That's important, because what grows well in places such as New England or Maine, doesn't necessarily translate into success in California.

And I must also stop short of calling Lockhart Seed just a "seed store." It's more than that. This place is a freaking museum. It is a reminder of generations past. From the creaking wood plank floors to the diplays on the wall and crammed into every corner it seems, Lockhart Seed is something special. After all, how many of you knew that tomato seeds were once sold in tin cans like this? I found these packed away in a corner of the store, covered with dust. I don't think they've been touched in a very long time, and despite my advanced years, I had no idea that seeds once came in a can.

Although some gardeners had predicted the "demise" of Lockhart Seed, it appears those predictions were a bit premature. Business is up thanks to the recent articles in the Sacramento and Modesto Bees, and up because the "backyard garden" is suddenly "in vogue" again. Venus and I were first time customers when we made the trip from Sacramento earlier in the week. And we just happened to run into another couple of first-time visitors, also from the Sacramento area.

In short, this may have been our first visit to Lockhart Seed, but it won't be our last.

Lockhart Seed is located on 3 North Wilson Way in downtown Stockton, and its central, downtown location makes for easy access from either Highway 99 or Interstate 5. Unfortunately, it is not open on the weekends, which will mean a special trip if your work full-time like the wife and I do. But, I promise you this much: It's well worth the effort.