The great onion surplus
THEY say you can never have too much of a good thing, but can you have too many onions?
In the late 1800s the Bellarine Peninsula’s farmers experienced bumper crops that resulted in a huge oversupply of onions – which was not without downsides.
The region’s rich soil and climate made it a bountiful farming district, once known as “The Granary of the Colony.”
Produce grown here was transported throughout Australia and later overseas, with onions notably abundant.
Statistics show almost 800ha of onion crops in the region in the early 1890s. Each hectare reaped a crop that could vary annually from about 13,500kg to 91,000kg and higher.
It was common for farmers to produce more onions than they knew what to do with. In July 1873, residents complained tonnes of decaying onions were poured into the sea from Portarlington pier.
They washed up on the Portarlington Common, an area on the foreshore where many farmers had cattle grazing. The cows ate the onions which had a flow-on effect for the taste of the town’s butter.
In 1888, a reporter from the Melbourne newspaper The Argus visited the region and commented, “I shouldn’t think there are as many onions in any place in the world as in Portarlington”.
Onions were infiltrating every aspect of life in the town. Not surprisingly, first course for lunch at the local hotel was onions. A local mother said she fed her nine children “mostly onions,” and therefore had no need for medicines.
The onions had more than one downside for the community, the worst of which was the physically demanding task of onion
weeding, which was done by hand.
Children were particularly good at this because of their
size and agility, and whole families would often do this work together.
It created such a problem that in the 1870s a motion was put forward at Bellarine Shire Council to forbid parents from letting their children miss school to weed onions.
Produce crops continued to be bountiful into the 20th century, with bumper crops of onions grown across the Geelong and Otway regions.
Onions were regularly reported to weigh up to 2kg each.
Did you know, you can grow onions and other produce by “loaning” seeds from Geelong Regional Libraries’ Seed Library?
Borrow some seeds, plant and grow your garden, then return seeds to the library to keep the cycle going.
Find out more at your local library or the GRLC website.
Find out more local history
at the Geelong Heritage Centre, and in the Geelong Regional Libraries’ collection. Historic Images from the archive of Kim
barne thaliyu / Geelong Heritage Centre. Search online: archives.grlc.vic.gov.au
Kim barne thaliyu / Geelong Heritage
Centre is located in the Geelong Library and
Heritage Centre, 51 Little Malop St, Geelong. While you’re visiting, check out the library collection, or explore our collection online at grlc.vic.gov.au