Green Onions

Published in Promethia, page 33, digital copy

They are ready to pick just before fall comes. Something special must happen in the soil, something sacred–because every year, the green onions mature slowly and then, all at once, spring up green like tulips in March, just in time to be sliced up for stew. I’m convinced it’s because they know better than anyone when the seasons are about to change.

I sowed them in early summer, right after I called my 87-year-old grandma, like every year, to ask her what I should plant next in the little square plot that sits outside of my house. The raised bed, with its plastic siding in the most practical shade of brown, had produced two dozen vibrant red radishes the week before–the most striking vegetables I had ever seen–and I was ready to fill their space with something equally breathtaking.

Grandma rambled off half a dozen different varieties of produce while I fervently scribbled her suggestions on a notepad, noting the little quirks of each type. I immediately paused, though, when she cooed, “You could grow some of those green onions.”

I’d seen her plant them before–after roaming around Lowe’s eyeing half-dead plants on the clearance rack, she would sweep me over to the garden section and grab a bundle of onion bulbs, laying them on top of whatever wilted plant she had decided to revive. They stayed buried in the soil of her garden for months, tugging themselves deeper and deeper into the ground to hide their expansion, while Grandma patiently looked on, biding her time until the day she chose to uproot them, uncovering her secret creations: large, creamy white onions.

Three weeks slid by, and I started to grow impatient with my little green onions. They were six inches tall and hardly the size of peas. I’d check the plot two or three times a day, hoping that in my absence, the rooty little vegetables would double in size. They didn’t.

I almost pulled them up multiple times in my frustration, but every time I got close, Grandma would talk me off the ledge like an alcoholic on the verge of relapse, reminding me that good things take time.

She was right, too. As I approach the raised bed, I know that this time I won’t walk away empty-handed. They’re twelve inches tall now, with thick stems that shoot high into the air and billow out like palm fronds.

How did this happen? I ask myself, gathering a cluster of onions, my fingers overlapping where the prettiest shade of green meets milky white skin. I give them a soft tug, and out of the ground comes a group of pearls covered in dirt, with long hair extending from their heads.

I rub them clean, washing each head in warm water, before laying them straight across a wooden cutting board. As I slice, the pungent smell of juicy onion fills the air. I grew this, I think to myself, sliding the pieces off the board into a green Dutch oven. It’s the most common miracle, and, at the same time, the most special.