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as the ground thaws so they’ll have enough growth under their belts to make decent-sized bulbs when triggered to do so by the fifteen-hour days of a northern-latitude high summer. If you didn’t realize onion farmers had to be this scientific about what varieties they plant, that’s just the start. They’re also required by law to live within a seventeen-county area centered on Vidalia, Georgia, in order to sell you a Vidalia onion, or in the Walla-Walla, Washington, region to print “Walla Walla Sweets” on the bag. French wine growers are not the only farmers who can market the subtleties of soil and climate, the things that translate into the regionally specific flavor they call terroir. The flavor of an onion, like that of a wine grape, is influenced by climate, soil chemistry, even soil microbes. It’s surely true of other vegetables, or would be, if we knew enough of our own local flavors to recognize them.

The earliest plantings are onions, potatoes, peas, and the cole crops (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts are all the same genus and species). All these do well in cool weather and don’t mind a few weeks of frost, or even snow on their heads. Broccoli buds will start to pop up above their leaves in the last cool days of May. In the same weather, snap peas twine up their trellises lightning fast and set their pods. Along with rosy new potatoes and green onions pulled early from bed, these will be the first garden proceeds, with asparagus, cold-hardy spinach, and other salad greens. The garden-bereft don’t have to live without these pleasures. In most of the country, farmers’ markets get going in April or early May. Especially in the Northeast, market gardeners are also savvy about stretching the season with cold frames, so these treasures can fill their stalls very early, in limited quantities that will go to the early risers.

If you picture the imaginary vegetannual, you’ll see these are the earliest tendrils of annual growth—leaves, shoots, and buds—filled out with early production coaxed from overwintered roots. Grocery-store-habituated shoppers may only have eyes for the Fourth-of-July-fireworks kind of garden bounty: big, blowsy tomatoes, eggplants, and summer squash. But many weeks before that big bang, subtle pleasures begin pushing up through the chill, come and gone again if you weren’t ready. I’d offer the same advice I include in my directions for finding our little town: Don’t blink. You’ll miss us.

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Getting It While You Can

BY CAMILLE

When our family first started our local food project, I was daunted. How ironic, I thought: while most parents are harping on their kids to eat more fruits and veggies, my sister and I are being told to give up the juicy pleasure of a fresh peach or pear all winter. I tried to picture how I would get through the months when there are no apples, no plums, and the strawberries of spring seem light-years away. This may sound dramatic, but fruit is my favorite food.

I was forced to get creative. The first step, shopping, is actually easier. When you peruse the farmers’ market for fresh produce, the options are clear. You don’t miss what’s not there, either, like Skittles placed at a third-grader’s eye level in the checkout. No wailing kids or annoying tabloids (omigod…is Brangelina really over?!). Just wonderful, fresh things to eat. As the seasons change, different fruits and vegetables come and go, so as a shopper you learn a get-it-while-you-can mentality.

The first strawberries showed up at our farmers’ market in late spring, on a day when I’d stopped in alone on my way home from a morning class. When I saw giant boxes of strawberries piled on the tailgate of a farmer’s truck, I didn’t waste ten seconds asking myself the questions I would mull over in a conventional grocery: “Hmm, do I really want berries today? Are these overpriced? Are they going to mold the minute I get them home?” I power-walked past other meandering shoppers and bought a bucket load. I drove home daydreaming about the creations I could cook up with my loot.

The