Dear Fellow Gardener,
We love hearing our customers' success
stories and
seeing photos of their garden bounty and
prize-winning onions. Please share yours
and, if
selected, you'll be featured in our online
Photo Album,
an upcoming newsletter, or our next catalog
-- maybe
even the catalog cover. Click
here for more information. We can't wait to see
what you send us!
And now on to the main feature, and a timely
one it is: Onion Harvesting
Tips.
Now that the summer is beginning to wind
down,
it's
time to plan the harvesting of your onions.
You'll find
that they'll become ready to harvest in late
July or early
August (right about now, in other words),
when most
of the tops have fallen over.
You should pull the onions early in the
morning on a
sunny day, and allow them to air dry until late
afternoon. Clip the roots and cut back the
tops to one
inch. After drying them outside for one day,
bring
inside for longer drying and curing,
spreading them
out in a dry place away from the sun.
If there's no room in your house to dry your
onions,
spread them out at the end of the driveway
with a
cotton sheet over them, to keep out heat and
circulate
air. Put rocks
along the edges of the sheet to keep it in place.
Allow 2-3 weeks for complete drying or curing.
Basics of curing:
- Sun dry for just a short time.
- Cure only the onions you'll store;
separate out the
soft, young and thick-necked bulbs and use them
first.
- Cure thoroughly in a warm,
well-ventilated area
away from direct sunlight.
- Don't crowd the onions during curing;
give them
room to breathe.
- The onions are ready to store when the
skins rattle
and the roots are dry and wiry.
The optimum temperature for storing onions is 50
degrees; the optimum humidity is 35%. After
curing,
hang your onions in mesh bags in your garage,
and
dry them some more before putting them in
root cellar.
The longer you cure your onions, the better
they'll keep.
Bruce "Onionman" Frasier
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