How Long Should I Cure my Onions for?

Sun Aug 28, 2011 8:31 pm

I harvested my onions a few days ago and have them in a single layer in 1020 flats with mesh-like bottoms. I'm trying to keep them out of direct sunlight (though I will admit that they do get some throughout the day).

How long should I cure them for before they are ready to be brought indoors for storage? They are longday, walla walla onions and I've heard everything from a few days to 2 weeks cure time.

Thanks for any input

.

Sun Aug 28, 2011 9:50 pm

James may have a little more detail.

First, Walla Walla sweet are not a storage type onion.

You can pretty much leave the onions in the garden until the tops completely wither away. This is little harder to do if you use overhead watering or you expect rain. If you have to pull early, then curing in a single layer should work.

Eric

Mon Aug 29, 2011 1:26 pm

Thanks. The tops were all withered when I pulled them.

I didn't want to let them sit in the ground long since the rain will just set-back my drying progress.

I know what you mean, too, by walla wallaa not being a long-term storage onion.

Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:24 pm

I get quite a few weeks from Walla Walla but this is the right kind of country for that, I suppose.

First off, I'm only about 200 miles from Walla Walla, WA . . . WaWaWA . . :roll:

(crying over onions) Secondly, yesterday the humidity dropped to 10%. That isn't terribly unusual - humidity is often below 20% by the end of a summer day.

I have some onions curing in the backyard right now. They are on the board step to the greenhouse and out of the sun for all but about an hour at the end of the day. Seems to work to have them there about 2 weeks.

I'll get them to December without much in the way of problems, once they've gone down to shelves in the basement.

Steve