Last year’s onions

Before last year, I never bothered growing onions or garlic simply because both are fairly inexpensive at the grocery store. I figured buying them was as cheap as growing them and I had a small garden. After expanding my garden last year, I decided to try my hand at both onions and garlic.
I discovered that if you don't pick them as soon as the stalks of either plants begin to turn brown, they have a way of disappearing, especially in a garden like mine where everything is fairly crowded together and nothing is in a neat and tidy row marked with a handy-dandy sign reminding me where I've put anything. Yes, my garden can be as complicated and convoluted as my sentence structure!
I planted red onions last year and harvested far fewer than I planted. The good news is that while the green onion top turned brown, withered and was hidden behind whatever plant was planted next to it, the bulb below the ground patiently bided its time, waiting for me to remember where I planted it. This spring, the bulbs sprouted green tops again and I paid attention and dug them before they withered and died.
So the $2.50 or whatever I paid for the bag of 50 tiny red onion bulbs in the spring of 2011 was actually a pretty good deal, giving me red onions for two years. I've also been scattering the seeds from the ones that have gone to seed in hopes that they'll give me more next year. 

Onions... the crop that keeps on giving. I guess that's in more ways than one for onion lovers and the non-onion lovers who love them.