(Stock photo/ Morguefile)

ATLANTA – Georgia’s most famous vegetable will hit the shelves next week.

Vidalia onions – the official state vegetable – are not even allowed to see the inside of a truck until Monday, when the state’s producers can start packing and shipping them all over the country.

Vidalias are trademarked mild, sweet onions that can only be grown by that name in a designated 20-county area in southeast Georgia.

The onion is so protected that it cannot be sold ahead of this year’s April 25 packing date and be called a Vidalia.

Sweet onions may be found in stores now, but none of them can claim the coveted “Vidalia” status.

This is the first growing season since the state’s Court of Appeals ruled last summer Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black can determine when the vegetable goes to market rather than leaving farmers to decide.

Black argued at the time the regulation was needed to protect the quality of the Vidalia and keep customers from taking home an onion that wasn’t quite ready for primetime.

That’s just fine with Aries Haygood, general manager of M&T Farms in Toombs County, the heart of the state’s Vidalia onion country.

“It was better for us to let them dry as long as possible,” Haygood said.

The onions are plowed and left in the field to dry before workers come and harvest them by hand – a tedious process that must be done within about five weeks.

Haygood said most growers began harvesting the onions a week ago, with M&T Farms starting on its 450 acres last Sunday.

Onions – and not just Vidalias – are big business in Georgia. It was the state’s most valuable vegetable in 2014, the most recent year available. Georgia farmers grew more than $138 million in onions that year.

Watermelons weren’t far behind – with more than $134 million in watermelons grown in Georgia. Bell peppers and sweet corn are also top vegetable crops for the state’s economy.

But this time of year, it’s the Vidalia’s moment in the sun.

Bob Stafford, director of the Vidalia Onion Business Council, said about 12,000 acres of the sweet onion were grown this year, down just slightly from last year.

He said growers and the state’s agriculture leaders try to balance the buyers’ demand with the onion’s need to fully mature.

“Everybody’s goal is to have a better tasting onion,” he said.

Vidalias are grown from Laurens County down to Pierce and as northeast as Screven County. The region’s climate and low-sulfur sandy soil are often credited with giving the Vidalia its sweet taste and ability to spare cooks a few tears in the kitchen.

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.