ONIONS -- pre-harvesting jitters (need handholding)

[applestar]

Onions Is a crop that I'm s-l-o-w-l-y getting better at growing.

I know my two main areas needing improvement are weeding/mulching and fertilizing.
So don't laugh when I show you these pictures, OK?

Here we are with onions at various pre-harvest stages. Please comment with your assessment regarding what I should be doing with them at this point before harvesting. Thanks!

(1) The neck of the plant on the right has fallen over and collapsed, so I'm thinking it's ready to harvest? The one on the left has fallen over.

(2) This one's neck is sturdy and straight

(3) The one on the left is straight and sturdy like (2).... The one on the right is starting to lean but hasn't quite fallen like the one on the left in (1). We won't bother to talk about the one in the front. :P

[JosephsGarden]

I would be getting the pre-harvesting anticipation. They are about there... If they were my onions, I would stop watering now. Then in a few days to a week I'd walk through the patch and step on every onion to break the necks of those that are not yet broken. Withholding water will make them less likely to regrow after the necks are broken. Then 3-5 days later I'd pull all the onions and lay them in single layer (shady spot preferred) to continue drying for a bit longer. Once I break the necks I don't like them to get wet again, so I disable the irrigation or put them under cover so they don't get rained on. Not that rain hurts them, but they store longer if kept dry during this period. I often time onion harvest so that it occurs during the dry-time between rainstorms.

For me, it is easier to harvest all the onions in a patch at once than it is to try to harvest individual onions when the top finally falls over.

p.s. If I were to ever show an honest photo of my garden there would be enough weeds to horrify any gardener.... I have learned that if I am only showing 2 onions plants that it only takes a few seconds to weed enough of an area to cover the area of the photo. Ha!!!

[ReptileAddiction]

Honestly, I don't do much of anything to my onions. I harvest them when I am happy with their size and I cut the tops off and the roots and I let them dry. I think I gave fish emulsion to my onions twice. I actually just put in another crop of them this morning. I bought them in 6-packs and then divided them.

[applestar]

With Arthur headed our way, I'll just have to wait until after he passes to withhold water.

I did harvest the one with withered dried neck and another one like it, brushed off the dirt and put it in a basket tray in front of the fan drying some garlic bulbs that were ready to be dug.

Thanks for all the helpful tips

Reptile, 6 packs of what? -- started onion plants now?

[digitS']

Good luck with Arthur, AppleStar.

I can't withhold water from much of anything. The veggies are mixed, onions right in the middle of things.

I still treat them much the same as Joseph. I bend over the 10% that don't do that on their own. Curing is important. The pulled plants go on the deck in front of my greenhouse. They only get about an hour of sun near the end of the day. They are a little bit of a bother because I get that deck wet with the lawn sprinkler. The onions are moved out of the way for an hour or so. But, they spend 2 or 3 weeks on that deck.

I used to dry them hanging on the north side of a fence. That worked well.

Take good care!

Steve

[PunkRotten]

When my tops fell over I stopped watering them and let them dry for about 2 weeks. I pulled them out and left them on the soil to dry for another week.

[applestar]

Harvested some of the onions today. We are experiencing drought which has been helping with the curing process, I think.

How do they look?

There are more of the "bigger" ones still in the ground that are stubbornly staying firm and upright. I'll give them a couple more days, then I WILL bend them -- it's a bit hard to steel myself and intentionally break them

I tried ordering "Intermediate mix" onion plants and "Long day mix " onion plants. These are long days and definitely better looking size wise, such as they are.

Next year, I will definitely stick with the Long day plants and work on improving my growing technique.

[digitS']

A little green, keep them where they have plenty of air circulation, AppleStar .

No rain will help. I guess those Vidalia onions in Georgia must be in the heat & dry the Southeast seems to be experiencing.

Walla Walla? Let's see. It is 94°f currently and is supposed to go above 100° Saturday and continuing. There was just over 1" of rain in June but none this month ... Humidity is 12% right now at the Walla Walla airport. Yeah, it's as dry as a potato chip down there .

Steve

[applestar]

Oh, so should they have been left in the ground, undug, to dry some more before pulling them?
The other smaller ones had completely collapsed necks....

[digitS']

I don't think so, AppleStar.

Just a little prompt to keep them dry from here out.

Green as in green, not green as in immature.

Steve

[applestar]

OK. Thanks, digitS'.

It's funny how growing things is such a mysterious art until you're successful at it a couple of times yourself....

[ReptileAddiction]

That is a lot more dry than I harvest mine at and mine are all fine. Yes I did just plant some more onions from 6-packs. I have never planted them this late but I think it should be fine. We will see. How many did you plant?

[applestar]

OK. Sounds good.

...I wonder how planting onions now would work? You would be growing short day onions right? So maybe they won't feel the day length difference that much and it won't matter?

I was wondering what to do with the dinky little onions that didn't grow well. Some of them are ideal onion set size, but no point in planting them now or even in the fall, I think. The ground freezes quite thoroughly during the winter here so I don't think even mulching them would help.

Even if it was possible to somehow store them until spring, the ones that are intermediate day varieties probably won't bulb well for me anyway. ...maybe I can make pickled pearl onions using a "by the jar" recipe, and save the jawbreaker size ones for making stew or something.

...are sweet onion and storage onion varieties harvested as green onions extra yummy? I could get them growing in the fall and pull them before hard frost/freeze....

[digitS']

Small onions I miss just bolt immediately to seed in the spring, AppleStar. Seed planted in late August, may or may not result in bolting plants. Sometimes, it works but more often, it does not. Better for me to start seed in the February greenhouse, before the heat is turned on.

Sweet onions that are immature, are the best green onions!

And the sets -- they must be ultimate keeping varieties to be of that size but last so many months without deterioration.

Steve