My Tiny PlotTime to Get the Onions In
I’ve been away camping this weekend so haven’t had chance to harvest my Onions. They’ve been ready for pulling for about a week now but I haven’t been able to harvest them because it was either raining or I didn’t have time.
It’s a delicate process. The weather needs to be dry and you need enough time to lift them gently, rub off the dirt and inspect each one. If it’s damaged in any way it should go into the ‘use now’ pile. If it’s large and blemish-free then it will make a good keeper.
Either way they all need to be dried (in the sun preferably) and stored in onion baskets, nets or plaited. I usually go for the onion basket option but I might try a bit of plaiting this year. I never seem to have enough leaf to wrap around the string though!
I love the orange colours that Onions produce. It’s one of the first colours of Autumn in the garden.
Onion skins can be used for dye.
Old nylon tights or stocking make good storage containers. Just drop one down to the toe, tie a big knot and then drop another down. It gives good aeration and the tights can be re-used (heck, what other use do they have?).
Good harvest. Onions are a great lift to almost any fall/winter veg – even fruit like apples and pears. Valuable choice indeed! And you’re right, the color is a great spark in the bounty of green.
Yep pulled mine out last week, I’m just drying them out on a old fridge veg rack, in the conservatory.
I was a little disappointed with my crop, I thought they where a bit small, any hints on what may have caused that?
I froze my onions last year, and this year – easier than finding somewhere to hang them up… I bring them all in, peel them, chop them (used the food processor this year, did it by hand last year), and then spread them out on trays and freeze them. Once they’re frozen, bag them up, and they’re all ready to use.
Chopping them all in the one session is quite satisfying – you don’t need to chop them when you want to use them, and you can use them straight from frozen, easy.
Mine lasted for ages last year – I kept them in an old sack that had housed daffodil bulbs! I pulled mine about 2 weeks ago, as they were bolting, but they are still drying in the shed, as the weather has not been great!
All I’d say is never cut off the leaves before drying.
If you do then you’re just opening up a wound for any Botrytis Spores that are floating around to invade your onion from the inside,and rot them off later on.
Where’s this Global Warming thiny gone ??
Hi Scott,
Did you feed them? Onions will benefit from a light nitrogen feed later on (chicken manure is a good one). I didn’t bother with mine because they were looking quite big anyway. But if they’re looking small give them a feed. Also make sure to keep the area well weeded. Onions don’t compete well with weeds and just end up being small.
I had a really good crop of onions that I have strung up. Tres French!! I used sand and manure to prepare the bed about a month before, and then let them do their thing. Keep well weeded as mtp says.