Post date: Jun 14, 2020 1:54:45 AM
Tips for harvesting onions:
Onions sowed in the Fall for overwintering will be ready for harvest anytime after June 21.
1. Each leaf of the onion is one sheath in the bulb. As long as leaf is green the plant can take water and fatten the bulb.
2. Wait for most of the leaves to yellow. When more than half of the leaves are yellow your onions are close to harvest.
3. You can fold up the leaves and leave them near the top when they yellow. As the leaves dry, the onion will develop a dry cover.
4. Stop watering when leaves turn yellow. You want the skin to form and you want the leaves to turn brown. This will take a week to 10 days.
5. Unless leaves turn brown, the onions won’t seal up. The sealing of the top and the growth of papery cover happens when onions are left to cure.
6. You cure them for a week on the growing bed as plants dry up. Then you pull the plant out and harvest and leave it in shade for another week to 10 days. Curing means allowing the onion skins to develop and seal the plant for storage.
7. The leaves must fully dry and turn brown. At this stage the papery outer cover has formed and the onion has sealed. The soil and the outer cover will come off easily, revealing a fully sealed onion that will store well.
8. Keep onions is a dark and cool place like a basement cellar. Moisture is its enemy. Don’t wash or moisten the onion.
9. You can also braid the onion and hand it in a cool dry place. Onions will keep depending on how mature they were at harvest.
10. Do not water the mature onion. It will rot. Let the plant die back in the soil naturally.
Enjoy your harvest.