As you may already know, we're committed to supplying you with the highest quality onions at affordable prices. We do our best to hold the line on prices from year to year, but sometimes events conspire against us.

Carrizo Springs, Texas has an ideal climate for growing onions, but unfortunately, we're a fair distance from many of our customers. Because delivery times affect quality, it's important that your onions are delivered as quickly as possible. To expedite your orders, our refrigerated trucks leave our packing house on Saturdays and Sundays and deliver to UPS hubs on Monday morning, keeping the total transit time at 2-4 days.

All our product prices include shipping as a matter of course, so that you can be aware of the actual cost of your purchase. Unfortunately, we've seen an unprecedented increase in shipping rates in the past year. The rising cost of fuel has had a ripple effect on our costs, and freight costs have skyrocketed.

Over the past year, UPS fuel surcharges have gone up roughly 20%. In some cases, when it's faster and/or more economical, we ship through the U.S. Postal Service. But their costs have sharply increased as well.

If you've noticed that your onions cost a little bit more more than they did last year, that's why. We want to emphasize that we're committed to providing you with the best product at the best value. We'll try to keep any price increases minimal, but we'll never compromise on quality or freshness. You have our word on that.

This year we have several varieties where the seed is limited, but we plan to have enough available. We do advise you to order early, however, just to be sure!

Instead of focusing on a particular onion this time, we'd like to address the process we use to include specific varieties in our catalog. First and foremost, we're looking for varieties that are either proven, or perform best in the trials we've set up throughout the country.

Second, we have to consider how difficult it is to produce the seed. It's getting harder and harder to get good onion seed, partly because farmers are reluctant to take the huge risk of producing it when they're almost assured of a profit growing wheat, corn, or soybeans. Traditional seed companies have also seen huge increases in costs, which they're not shy about passing on to us.

Since it does us no good to promote a variety just to find out there's no seed available, we're usually forced to buy seed a year or more in advance. Sometimes, though, the seed for a particular variety becomes scarce despite our efforts, and we know of no fairer way to allocate the available stock than on a "first come-first served" basis.

Our buddy Chuck sends us this:

"Attached is a photo of my wife, Helen, with a couple of her prize-winning Candy onions. Each year we plant Candy, along with several other varieties we purchase from Dixondale. Although we reside up in the mountains at 6,000 feet altitude and have a very short growing season (it often snows in June and September), Helen has won blue ribbons with them every year at our Wasatch County Fair (in Utah). The local gentry, who purchase these onions from us, rave about the size, quality, and taste of these beauties."

We love hearing from our customers. Send us your favorite "onion photo" and we'll try to include it in a future newsletter, our next catalog or our upcoming online Photo Album. Click here for details on how to submit your photos.

We're famous! Dixondale Farms was recently featured in the February 2008 issue of Texas Agriculture. In fact, we made the cover, and Bruce is quoted extensively. The article we're in is mostly about one of our constant concerns, the perennial shortage of good field labor -- but it also covers all the other obstacles we have to overcome to bring you great onions, from weather to disease. You can read the entire article here.

Onions are a labor-intensive crop, so having good workers is crucial. Shown here are two of our most valued employees, Juan (right) and Loudres Sanchez.

As the largest and oldest onion plant farm in the US, Dixondale Farms offers a wide selection of top-quality, disease-free, ready-to-plant onion plants. To see our complete product line, request a catalog, or for growing tips and cultural information, visit our Web site by clicking here.

Whether you're planting one bunch or thousands of acres, we're committed to your success. If you have either questions or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Central Time at 877-367-1015, or e-mail us any time at customerservice@dixondalefarms.com.