Onion Seed Harvesting

[greenstubbs]

There's got to be a easier way than the way I'm doing it, seems like it take forever to clean out the flower. I feel like I'm in my stoner years cleaning them. Give me some ideas to a easier way. Thanks

[jal_ut]

Seems to me that if left long enough the flower just opens up and you dump the seed out. ??? I don't remember it being any big thing to get the seed out.

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, I agree, you probably just didn't wait long enough. Wait until the flower is all brown and open and then you can just shake the seed out.

Should look like this:

[gixxerific]

Agree you are probably getting the flower too early. Ideally if the flower heads aren't brown and dried up good when harvesting You could leave a few in the ground to fully ripen than take the other onions for curing.

Kind of like I did with my garlic to get the bubils good and ripe. I cut the scapes off of all but a few. Only don't do what I did and get carried away harvesting and take them out as well.

[greenstubbs]

Well, I had one that dumped it seeds so I'm sure i'll have vol's popping up next year. They do look like the one pic'ed if not more overly done than that. I just don't want to loose more than I want to collect. What I did do is pick them and let them drya afew days to maybe shake them out but pretty much had to rub them between my hands to get them all out, which left a mess of dried flower in with the seeds. So hense my line about my stoner days to seperate the two. It just seems that there has to be something easier and without losing a bunch of seed.

[greenstubbs]

Well, I had one that dumped it seeds so I'm sure i'll have vol's popping up next year. They do look like the one pic'ed if not more overly done than that. I just don't want to loose more than I want to collect. What I did do is pick them and let them drya afew days to maybe shake them out but pretty much had to rub them between my hands to get them all out, which left a mess of dried flower in with the seeds. So hense my line about my stoner days to seperate the two. It just seems that there has to be something easier and without losing a bunch of seed.

[applestar]

I believe the step after that is winnowing -- gently pour the seeds and dried bits from a height into another container, letting a gentle breeze blow the lightweight dried stuff away. You can do this with a fan as well.

[jal_ut]

The onions I planted for seed this year bloomed, but not much seed in the head. I don't know what went wrong.