[Ed. note: What with work and the upcoming Wayne County Fair, Hunter and his family have a lot going on. Here’s a column from last year, marking the allium harvest, along with the poison ivy harvest...]

There’s a lot going on with the Wayne County Fair and all the hustle and bustle of the end of summer. I can hardly believe my son is getting ready to head back to school in the next few weeks. The phone has begun to ring with spring animals being finished for fall harvest, and the fields are beginning to show their peak before their autumn descent. 

Another sign of the times is that I finally caught up with a task that should have been done weeks ago. Picking the garlic. Thanks to our help at the farm we finally got it pulled and hung in our fancy new curing rack. 

Fancy? Why yes, I built it myself… from pallets and a brand new tarp. I didn’t even use an old tattered one; so, yes, it’s fancy. 

It wasn’t without punishment, however, as many of the walkways have devolved into weeds. Aside from the obstacle there, it also presents a biological challenge, since I have now contracted some type of poison affliction on my forearms. The hogweed or ragweed or some other weed is likely the culprit, but they share the commonality that none of them should really be there. I suppose that’s what I get for not manicuring my rows. 

With the garlic hung, however, it’s important that we clear the mess to get one last fall crop in before the first frost in only two months. 

Our onion crop should be getting harvested now as well but… it remains hidden beneath the jungle of our weedy walkways. I did clear one area to see how they were growing, and considering we started from seed, they have definitely grown. However, with little time left in the season, I have concerns as to whether we’re going to have nice big storage onions or just small pearl onions. Those small onions would be good in a soup or slow cooker, potentially even a sheet pan oven meal. But it doesn’t seem right cutting them cross-section for burgers when they have the diameter of a 25-cent coin. 

What’s more, our fancy new curing rack can only accommodate things that are at least an inch wide to keep them from falling through. If our pearl onions were not just big enough, we’d have to rig the new rack just to get them dried. Considering this whole mess is because I didn’t have enough time, I’ll defer to the option that doesn’t make more work for me later, i.e., hopefully growing the onions big enough. 

We started our onion seeds in January this year and they were just large enough to plant by late spring despite the muddy planting. Assuming we have a more agreeable spring forecast, we might try to plant the seeds as early as December to get even more of a jump on the onion growth. But as you may glean, the road to failure is paved with good intentions.

That being said, I can’t imagine a bad intention is going to help me any more. 

It seems I am in need of many cures upon assessment of our alliums. My arms need a poison ivy cure, our onion growing needs a cure for how to grow better, and a cure for whatever they yield this season.

The way out here we pursue a good natural cure. Our garlic has crossed that finish line, but there is much yet to come. By the way, did I mention I just cured some beef bologna at the butcher shop? I may need a cure for all my CURE-iosities!