Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Onion Farms!


I'm a little late sharing this picture, but we are surrounded by onion farms! Each row is lined with 50 lb bags of onions! This is just one small field, looking towards Yerington from the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area. There are tons of onion farms! Early October the higway is full of huge trucks full of onions. They're easy to spot because of the onion skins flying out of the back of the truck!

Each bag is loaded by hand and you can see lots of people in the fields picking onions and throwing them in the bags. Then the truck comes along, loads the onions and takes them to a dehydration facility at the Nightengale Hot Springs. The energy from the hot springs is used to freeze-dry the onions (or so I've heard). I also didn't know that onions are dehydrated before they reach the store to help keep them fresh. The few outer layers that you have to peel off are fresh when they get picked!

1 comment:

Jen said...

I totally didn't know that! Thanks for the lesson on onions! :)