It’s summertime and the Island is humming. Streams of giddy tourists file off the ferry and lines of sunburnt visitors file back on. Car horns blare, fishing lines whizz out to sea, seagulls and children scream. But far from the T-shirt shops and fry shacks, Ethan Buchanan-Valenti can be found in a quiet field at Beetlebung Farm in Chilmark. He crouches down and pulls a white onion from the rich, black soil. He lifts it up, brushes off the dirt, and, as if it were an apple, takes a bite.

“I love onions,” he said. “I love them so much.”

This love affair with onions, and with farming as a whole, is not new. Buchanan-Valenti was born and raised on the Island. At fourteen, he started working at Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown and was hooked. “I think it was just the work, just the physical nature of the hard work,” he said. “Putting in that good, hard day and sleeping so well in those nights. It’s what I live for.”

Eventually he became the field crew manager at Morning Glory. In 2018, he was hired by The Grey Barn & Farm in Chilmark to turn their half-acre garden into a five-acre vegetable program. During his first growing season, some produce struggled but the onions thrived. Their success encouraged him to keep going. He took fastidious notes and improved each year. 

After almost five years with Grey Barn, Buchanan-Valenti took his farming expertise to Beetlebung in 2024. And while you can buy his beautiful onions at the West Tisbury Farmers’ Market, which he also manages, or from Beetlebung’s new farm store, he is happy to provide guidance to home-gardeners looking to grow their own perfect onion.

His first piece of advice: when choosing an onion variety, follow your heart. “Pick up every seed catalog you can find and just look at the pictures and see if the words sweep you off your feet in the description, and go for that one,” he said. But, he advised, go for a “long day” variety for our New England climate.

You could start from an onion “slip” or “set,” but starting from seed results in the best-looking onions. Then focus on the basics: “plenty of sun, plenty of water, plenty of good airflow.”

Buchanan-Valenti transplants his onions in the first or second week of April, unless it’s too cold and wet. “As long as you get them in the ground before May, or by that first week of May, you’re in a great spot,” he said.

An onion’s thin leaves don’t take up much room or provide much shade, so weeds take full advantage – it’s best to remove weeds often to protect the onion. “It doesn’t want anyone else sharing its space,” he explained.

As spring progresses, onions keep growing leaves but no bulb. “You’re like, ‘Why isn’t it looking like an onion down there yet?’” he said. But then, just like many other things on the Island, summer begins and everything changes. “It’s like clockwork,” he said. “As soon as the day length starts changing, they start focusing on their bulb growth. And once that hits, it’s going to take all those leaves that it’s been growing and just photosynthesize itself into a beautiful onion.”

By the end of July, you should have full-sized onions. And Buchanan-Valenti said that harvesting them is one of his favorite times of the year. “July – you’re just in it as much as you could be,” he said. “You have so much to show for all the work you’ve been doing for the past few months, and you’ve got so much ahead of you.”

You can eat onions right after harvesting or you can dry them, which takes anywhere from three to six weeks. In between, “they’ve got this awkward, teenager stage” but, once dry, they keep for months. 

Buchanan-Valenti and his wife and fellow farmer, Bri, had their daughter, Rilo, about two-and-a-half years ago. She’s still many years away from her own teenager phase and when she’ll decide whether she wants to work in the family business or go her own way. Buchanan-Valenti said he doesn’t necessarily hope she’ll get into farming, but he does hope she’ll learn some of the lessons he and his wife have gained from their work. 

“I think the biggest thing that she’s gonna get from us is just the respect for nature and the earth, and that’s pretty much all I need her to take away,” he said. 
        
Respect the earth and, in return, the earth may give you onions. If that happens, Buchanan-Valenti has some more recommendations: roast them with garlic until you have a paste and spread that on pizza; use a Walla Walla or a Vidalia to make onion rings; slice pink onions and pickle them. Or, if you don’t want to wait, just brush off the dirt and take a big, juicy bite.