A bit of info on onion harvesting

Very helpfull, I have some onions for the first time this year.

 

I too have some onions growing for the first time this year. I started them in march from sets. They're not meant to be ready til august, which probably means september for my garden, but I've pulled one or two so far already. They're like massive spring onions, or very small 'proper' onions. We don't use that many in our house so I'm happy to just pull them as we need them even if they're not prize winning size yet.

 

We are too, they are better than spring onions

 

You are right about the cost
Though the product, you have obviously not tasted a supermarket Onion for a while
They are like Dutch Tomatoes, tasteless just pure water, with a sprinkling of Onion powder, disintigrate when frying, and vanish in a soup or stew

Jack McH

 

Although a spacious, low-yield, crop I do find that Onions store well (even if they start to grow in the cupboard they are still find to use for quite a while)

I grow three different varieties as it seems to vary a bit as to which ones start shooting first, in the cupboard, so I hedge my bets.

I don't store any that have bolted (i.e. they get used in the kitchen first) and I start pulling for the kitchen as soon as they are a reasonable size - seems nuts to buy from Supermarket just so I can "store" a crop harvest only once mature.

For harvest I wait until tops fall over by themselves - I do not "encourage" them at all. I find that this is is surprisingly late some years. Normally July is the start of the "pull for kitchen use" period, and later than that for harvest to store, but I've not grown Autumn-sown ones before Loofah and seems reasonable that they are earlier. My cupboard-stored onions from last year are still perfectly usable

 

They didn't say anything about an old gardener's tale, told to me by. . . an old gardener. Point the root plate towards the sun while drying and it will stop the onion sprouting during storage. I've kept to it and it seems to be working for me. Cheers, Tony.

 

That would be a raised bed presumably?

 

Just out of curiosity I have to ask, does this mean your constantly turning the onions all day as the Sun revolves round the earth?

Steve...

 

It's been hundreds of years since astonomers discovered it's the other way round, although Galileo did get in a bit a trouble when he suggested it.