Farmers Market: What to do with wild onions

Linda Roberston/Columnist
Published: April 16, 2008

Today Chris and I spent the entire day working in the yard and garden. At the top of our front yard I have a big flowerbed that grows peonies, lilies, tulips, iris and LOTS of weeds!

Last year I just got lazy about pulling the grass that grew in the peonies. I justified my laziness by rationalizing that the blooms were gone and the foliage would soon die out anyway. I am not kidding. The peony shoots were invisible within the grass clumps although I knew they had to be there somewhere.

I sat a patiently and pulled grass for over an hour in the first peony bush. It was backbreaking, hand-breaking and mind-numbing work. Finally, I was able to find the shoots that had needed the sunlight to grow.

OK, 70 minutes later I looked at peony clump number two and three.

"Chris, bring that big ol' tiller over here!" As I stood there surveying the dam-age Chris and his weed eater had done to my immerging lily shoots yesterday, I knew I was taking a really big chance that I would have no peonies this year. I convinced myself that the light starved shoots would be so far beneath the grass clumps they would survive the onslaught of the tiller.

Actually, I was right about that. Converting an old cornfield to a lawn is not an easy task. We have grass clumps that defy the laws of nature. When our daughter cleared the driveway to her house several years ago, the grass just spread right back into the road and grew between the stones as they waited for enough money to order more gravel.

One thing I did enjoy about the weeding of the flowerbed was looking at the wild onions that grow this time of year. I know everyone curses those little onions as they cut the grass and the yard smells like salad. But as I pulled them out by hand I was amazed at how large some of them had gotten. They were actually size of scallions we buy at the grocery store.

All this made me think back to my dad and stories of his youth in Harlan County, Ky.

I have told you before how poor they were, both as a child and as a young man entering World War II.

He loved Spring onions and polk salad. The onions grew wild in the fields and the polk salad green grew between rocks, in dirt and just about anywhere. Polk is rather like mustard green but the leaf is shaped more like a collard green, and when it is cooked it gets almost slimy, although not quite to that point.

When I was a child he used to take the entire family to a gravel pit just off Beulah Road in the Springfield-Franconia area of Fairfax County. My sister and I would walk around and pick the polk hoping to have enough to please our dad.

We were always told, "good job, but push it down in the bag and you'll have room for more."

I really admire my dad's generation because they knew how to make do with they had and what God gave them. Most of his group is well into its 80s now. I get so upset when I hear the Gen-Xers talking about seniors as though they are taking advantage of the system, walking a little slow or being a little confused by technology.  Hey people, be nice, your turn is coming.

SPRING POTSTICKER SOUP

Chicken base (available in the meat section or at BJ's), NOT bullion cubes

Frozen potstickers

2 Spring onions

Favorite greens such as spinach, collard, or kale

Mix 3 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of the chicken base, go easy, this can be salty if you add too much to start. Heat and taste to make sure it is strong enough. Add more base if needed. Bring to a boil and add in 3 potstickers per person. You can also strip 3 or 4 leaves of your favorite green.  Cut up the onions, greens and all. Sprinkle on the hot soup and cook 1 minute more. Ladle into bowls and serve as a first course. Serves three to four people.

Linda Robertson is the executive director for Historic Manassas Inc.