Sweet Onions

Long before wine, sweet onions put Walla Walla on the culinary map. Peter Pieri, a French soldier, came to the Walla Walla Valley around 1900 bringing the original sweet onion seed with him from Corsica. Thanks to the low sulfur content of our area soils, the Walla Walla Sweet Onion is less acidic and thus sweeter tasting than other white onions. For real aficionados, it’s not uncommon to eat them raw like apples. Since 2007 the sweet onion has even been the official vegetable of Washington State. Today approximately 60 growers cultivate the Walla Walla Sweet Onion on about 1,200 acres in the Walla Walla Valley.

If you’d like to grow them yourself, you are in luck. It’s a yearly sign of the arrival of spring when area growers distribute onion sets through local grocery stores. While onions are commonly planted commercially in the fall, you’ll find good success with a spring planting in your own garden. Around July you’ll start to notice the current year’s crop in stores and roadside stands.