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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Onions, Anyone?

Ok, so I have read and also found to be true from personal experience, that when your onions start to fall over; it's time to harvest. I had already started to pull my onions out when I remembered to photograph this so I promise there were more here when I started.

In this bed in the new garden, I had planted red, white and yellow onions from sets. I only pushed them into the ground 3/4 of the way and hoped this would yield a larger onion than in years past. Sets intrigue me but honestly I think I get a nicer onion from actual plants. Who knows?
I just tugged on the tops and out popped my pretty little onion. I love easy harvesting, it makes my heart sing. It makes everything..... Groovy. Sorry, I just had to. That song has been popping up for days.

This handy gadget with 1/2 metal mesh is my compost sifter but for today it doubles as my onion curer. Onions are ready to harvest when most of the tops fall over. You are supposed to leave them on the dirt to cure for at least one week but so much else still needs to be watered in the big garden that I can't water harvested onions with a clear conscience so I moved them to my garden shed to cure. Curing means they will develop that pretty papery shell on the outside that protects them for storage. After the curing stage is over you're supposed to clip the tops to within 1/2" of the top of the bulb but that seemed messy to me so I jumped ahead a week. Waiting was probably the more prudent thing to do. It's a problem I have. One can then store them in a cool, dry place for winter use.


Last year I got hold of all the old (not gross) pantyhose I could find and cut the legs out of them. I would then slip one onion into the toe and tie a knot above it. Then I would slip another onion down on top of the knot and so on. This kept the onions from sitting directly on one another and made it easy to get one for dinner time use by just cutting below a knot and taking it indoors. I did not buy an onion until January this past winter. They store quite nicely. Not the sweets, they don't store for beans but most of the others store like a dream.

20 comments:

  1. I have NEVER had luck growing onions to full sized! Yours are gorgeous. What is the trick?? I may try again (I always do) and hope for the best.

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  2. Hi Heather..your onions look beautiful..i smiled when i saw them this morning..cause the air had a snap here on our walk with Butterscotch..and i told my husband, John, i feel like making french onion soup !

    Have a great weekend.
    Best,
    Kary

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  3. Heather your onions look great - I didn't know you could store them for so long. We have a hard time keeping just a bag with only the 2 of us. Guess I'll stick 'em in panty hose (the true secret is in the pantyhose right?) LOL
    Hey Heather I was just visiting a local goat farm website and blog. I've had their biz card laying here hoping to make it up there to see the goats and buy some of their outrageous cheese and didn't even realize they had a site. This cheese is to die for - I can't believe I haven't made it up there. Have you ever made any cheese with your goats milk? They even go around having cheese making and wine tasting classes. Fun huh? Get loaded and make goat cheese. LOL You might want to take a look at their site - it's really interesting.
    http://bluerosedairy.com/

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  4. Your onions look fabulous. Some of mine were falling over a bit but they seemed rather small to me yet. Maybe it's because I'm used to bigger commercial onions???

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  5. Great onions. I just harvested mine less than a week ago. I hung them from my fence to dry. However with rainy forecasts I decided to bring them in and let them finish curing in the basement along with the garlic. Also, Cinj mine were not all that big but I concluded that they were not getting enough sunlight on a daily basis due to my neighbors tree of a honeysuckle.

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  6. I am in awe of your gardening prowess! You will be set for a long cold winter with all your provisions!

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  7. They look terrific! I grew good keepers once, but then they got onion maggots afterwards, or half the crop did, or something. I wasn't keeping records then, just having children. . .

    Those look yummy, and I can almost imagine them sauteing with olive oil. So good.

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  8. Heather,

    That is so funny; I did the exact same thing today. Looked at the onion plants all tipped over, and pulled them all out. Then I see your post and wah lah, you did too. We'll post a photo soon, Mrs. Suburban Gardener erased the cool photos I took earlier today.

    Looking good

    SG

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  9. Great job! You are going to be so well stocked for winter you'll never have to leave now! Our onions barely grew, but it's good to see that someone else had great luck with them.

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  10. Heather,
    I like the pantyhose idea. I will try this with my onions this year.
    Your drying method with a compost sifter is a great idea,too!
    Rosey

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  11. Heather, congrats on another harvest! You're rockin' that farming life! Thought about you the other day when I BOUGHT fruit roll-ups for the kids!!!

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  12. Beautiful onions, I am so envious. With the constant rain in june and july on the east coast mine gave up the ghost and are the size of a large marble. The first year ever we wont have a winter supply. Oh well, gardeners always look for a better season next year..

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  13. These look wonderful! I've tried to grow onions for two years now without success. Digging them up and moving them mid season last year probably didn't help...

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  14. Good looking onions, Heather!! You've definitely got that green-thumb!

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  15. The deer decided it was time to harvest my onions by eating the tops and pulling them from the ground at the same time.

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  16. Fantastic! You've got a great crop and many different varieties! Send some my way...I'm crazy for French Onion Soup!

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  17. Wow! I love the photo of all the onions together! It looks amazing, I can't wait until I have crops like that to show off. Great job.

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  18. Your onions look great, especially lined up by variety like that! I need to pay more attention to my garden.

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  19. I love the pictures of the onions on the compost sifter and I would love to see a picture of all the onions in their pantyhose!

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Thank you for your ideas, suggestions or greetings. I love to hear from you and read them all.
-Heather

About This Blog

We started this blog in Feb. of 2009 to help us stay motivated and to track our progess in the garden. We live on 5 acres surrounded by Idaho farmland. We have wildlife galore and are attempting to attract more in the bird catagory. This is our journal. Welcome!

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