Ideally the crop would be easily maintained, profitable, easy to market, and allow removal for getting back into vegetable production.

Any ideas out there?

The reason I went to all this trouble is that there is absolutely no weeding, the onion plants are set precisely, and harvest is a breeze – just pull back the landscape fabric and most of the onions just pop out of the ground. I then spread them out on the hoophouse benches to finish drying until their necks are very tiny. All together, the planting, the harvest, and the cleaning take less than 5 days work over the whole season for about 600 pounds of onions – in just 300 square feet. The work could easily be done on the weekends. I found a source on the web for mesh produce bags at 18 cent a pop. I give a 10# bag to each of the CSA members, offer more as an Onion Share, and also sell them at the Farmer’s Market. The best use I have found for them is to trade them with other vendors at the market for crops I don’t want or can’t grow well – sweet corn, winter squash, etc. Although I plant a few specialty varieties (red, torpedo, scallions, etc.) the major of them are Copra onions. Well-dried, stored in good conditions, they can last until the following May or June. I used the last one from the ’05 crop on July 4th this year. You might have to spent some time this winter lining up customers for the fall, but you might try contacting a local food co-op (or warehouse) and seeing if they would buy all of them them.