Onions Harvest June 19

[robby]

I plan to harvest the red onions tomorrow, and set them on screens in the garage to dry. The yellow onions seem to be maturing later, so I will bend down the stalks of the yellows and speed the process. Once I get all the onions harvested, I'll compost and till that bed and plant summer squash.

The dog is still spending most of his time indoors, but always follows me out, and is good about not walking in the vegetable garden. He has a new game where he'll do a total circuit of the yard, looking for lizards.

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

You bend down onion tops to finish them? I never heard of that method - I let mine go to the top-flop stage when they're ready. But recently I've been harvesting some of them early just because I want to free the space for other crops.

[robby.livejournal.com]

The reds mostly flopped over on their own and have now been dug up. I bent over what yellows haven't flopped and will harvest them next week. I do need the entire bed soon for squash.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Belated response... I wasn't very clear. What I was asking was, do you think that bending down the onion tops makes a difference to their reaching the end of their growth cycle? Or do you do it in order to dry them?

[robby.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a technique to get the entire crop to shut down and enter the bulb stage. I want to store them as long as possible, and want dry, dormant onion bulbs.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip! I want to increase storage life too. So today I'll bend down all of my overwintered onions that I haven't harvested yet.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Here's my source on harvesting onions.
I have the yellows still in the ground, to come out on Saturday morning and sit in the sun and then inside the garage onto drying racks at sunset.

http://www.garden.org/foodguide/browse/veggie/onions_harvesting/501

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That looks great and I'll follow it.

[robby.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. We're having low humidity, so hopefully when the process is complete, I'll have luck and they'll last in storage. I plan to keep the stalks on and braid the onions into chains, then hang them in a cool and dark inside closet.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes that's what I plan to do too, now that I've harvested all of mine, although of course I'll need to pick out the ones with visible white-rot damage. Did you see the comment on my own LJ-page, saying that folding down the tops isn't recommended by some gardeners? I now don't know which advice to follow.

[robby.livejournal.com]

I did quote my source, and it does seem reputable. You can also click over to the next page for a bit about storing onions. I did wait for the majority of the onions to fall on their own, but I'm not going to now delay planting squash, because of a few stragglers. On the internet, you hear all sorts of conflicting advice, and it takes a bit of judgment sometimes to sift through it. Today I will finally pull the yellow onions, and if I am efficient enough, I'll also compost and till that bed.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Yes it does look like a reputable source. I haven't yet seen any data to support the 'don't bend onions" advice.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

The LJ Friend who advised me not to bend onion tops has now said that it was a misunderstanding. (http://sammason.livejournal.com/482673.html)