With the anticipated hard work each PA Dutch farmer was responsible for, and how heavily he would be relied upon in early spring, it is understandable the stringent work-ethic these PA Dutch people developed, some of the best farmers in the nation, who should not be denied their celebrations or their reliance on yesteryear’s folkways. An Americana farming heritage, starting with mother and father, hard-working PA Dutch “work-ethic” was acquired by their parents and so on teaching their children to appreciate a day’s wages, nothing in life is free and make the best opportunity that God gives them.
Surrounded by other skilled and productive Dutch natives, most have acquired their work-ethic neither to waste time nor money, in addition to PA Dutch folkways as planting one’s onions on St. Patrick’s Day, and not procrastinating on duties, unless there is bad weather. The cadence in which many PA Dutch extended families lived combined New World ideas together with our Rhineland ancestry, and provided a meaningful unique heritage. But urbanites that move into the Kutztown area are bewildered by natives commenting on light falling snow as an “Onion Snow.” Not familiar with the religiously-oriented PA Dutch people, outsiders merely dismiss this comment as one of those bazaar “Dumb Dutch” statements.
But in fact, it is a reminder to modern neighbors that they should have planted their peas and onion sets by St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. I remember folk painter Verna Seagreaves, for one, who would be amused at my boss’s remark of onion snow in our visits and pointing it out in her spring scene watercolors. But Europeans surviving on the North American continent learned that in order to survive, these early settlers were wise if they took advantage of the growing season by always planting these two vegetables, traditionally, by March 17, barring no extended cold weather or late frost.
Among the wise and prudent self-sufficient PA Dutch people, their Americana folk calendar has always called for the planting of onions and peas on March 17, St. Patty’s Day. Since Colonial times, gardeners were urged to hedge themselves against a shorter sporadic growing season in North America, a folk practice learned by early Americans who had suffered though devastating, long winter storms. Having survived the early American winters without any fresh vegetables, when the spring season appeared and wild dandelion was available, PA Dutch people took advantage of their appearance to harvest them and mix into a salad with bacon dressing and hard boiled eggs. It was especially made on “Maundy Thursday” (Green Thursday), the day before Good Friday, and associated with the Easter holiday.
If one’s onion sets are sprouting, and a light snow falls on your garden in early spring, the Dutch simply avow it as a harmless “onion snow” that will not affect this planting. But, some cautious people will start their peas in ground-filled cardboard egg boxes in the home, then transplant them outside when they are sure a frost will not affect them. However, we usually do not call it a “pea snow.” In some years when the Easter holiday is earlier and falls when onion snows are numerous, thrifty PA Dutch people traditionally decorating Easter egg trees quite often wrap sassafras trees in traditional cotton to duplicate falling onion snow.
In frontier days, as soon as the groundhog predicted six more weeks of winter or an early spring on Feb. 2, PA Dutch natives sought this edible form of vegetation to enhance their diet, until their gardens could provide a balanced diet. Therefore, our eager ancestors could not wait to begin their gardens, a major source of food from which their families could survive.
Richard L.T. Orth is assistant director of the American Folklife Institute in Kutztown.