In January, Delbert Bland of Bland Farms LLC in Glennville, GA, was worried about the Vidalia onion crop he had in the ground. There was heavy rain during the transplant period of November and December and temperatures stayed far above normal well into January — neither of which bodes well for onions.

Bland isn’t worried any more. In March “the crop woke up and they are beautiful right now. We’re extremely pleased with the quality and very excited about the upcoming crop, it looks at this point to be excellent and we are about halfway through plowing up already if not a little more,” Bland said April 21, four days ahead of the official pack and ship date for Vidalia.

There is such a bounty coming out of Vidalia fields that “we’re putting onions in storage already because there’s such good quality and quantity we don’t need them all to ship,” Bland said. “When we start shipping Vidalias (April 25) we will have a premium onion, no question about it. The weather forecast looks good and all we have to do is get a lot of work done right now.”

Bland expects plowing will be completed by May 1, and “hopefully we will be harvested and in the house by May 18-20, that’s what we’re aiming for.

“We did have a difficult time when we first set out because it was so wet and so hot, unusually warm,” Bland said. “Now we have a very good crop of onions so we’re excited about it. The sweet onion market is strong so that’ll be great, too.”

The organic crop has come off in great shape too, unlike last year when almost all Vidalia growers had troubles in that category.

Last year “we had a difficult time, as did everybody in the region, but this year they look good, we’re pretty excited about ‘em,” Bland said. “Organics are no longer optional — it’s one of those things you have to do, you’ve got to, so we’ll have a lot of organics — about 200 acres, about 7 percent of our overall crop and that’s about our sales.”

Bland’s sweet potato program, launched two years ago, is thriving as well.

“We’re probably going to double our acreage by next year,” Bland said. “Our sweet potato program is coming strong. Some foods are fads, some are staples. Sweet potatoes have always been popular, but with all the good news about their health benefits, they’ve gone beyond a fad. We’re gonna be sweet, whether it’s onions or potatoes. I believe we can co-market that way. There’s no reason why you can’t have a bag of onions and a bag of sweet potatoes set beside each other in the store.”