How To Store Onions Properly. Part 1

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

When the onion is harvested, gardeners wonder how best to store it. However, this task is within the power of everyone. Of course, the main guarantee of good preservation of onions in winter is its competent and timely harvesting, however, a lot also depends on storage conditions. If you follow all the basic recommendations, the onion harvest will be perfectly preserved throughout the entire winter period

Preparing onions for storage

Only ripe onions are able to survive well. Unripe bulbs, characterized by thickened necks and very fragile small scales, are much less protected from ailments provoking rotting. And if you overexpose the onion in the beds, then its "re-growth" can start: it will give new roots and lose dry scales. Such bulbs are also not able to be stored for a long time. That is why the onion must be harvested in a timely manner and given the opportunity for full ripening.

How to determine when it's time to harvest the onion crop? It's very simple: if the onion necks have noticeably thinned, and the feathers have dried up and died, then the long-awaited moment of harvest has come.

Onions usually ripen in August, about ninety to one hundred and twenty days after planting. And more exact dates depend on the variety. It is better to try to harvest the onion crop on a sunny and dry day - this will allow you to thoroughly dry it under the gentle sunlight.

It often happens that the weather is so good that it's time to dry the onions, but they are not yet ripe. In this case, you can cheat a little and accelerate its maturation. For this purpose, it is slightly undermined with a pitchfork so that the roots "undermine" a little. After this event, life-giving moisture and valuable nutrition will cease to flow into the bulbs from below, and the onion feathers will die off, and all the useful compounds will go into the turnip. As a result of this trick, the onion will ripen much faster. And even if the bulbs are finally pulled out of the beds, you should not neglect this recommendation either. There is no need to rush to cut the onion as soon as possible and put it away for storage, let it lie for a day or two in the beds along with the feathers - the nutritional value, as well as the safety of the bulbs, will become even better.

How to dry onions

Onions must be thoroughly dried before being sent to be stored. Of course, no one and nothing will be able to cope with this task better than the sun's rays, because, in addition to drying the bulbs, they also perfectly disinfect their surfaces, quickly killing various pathogens.

Ideally, if the weather is good, it is advisable to dry the onions in the beds for a week or even a couple of weeks. Only the bulbs will need to be turned over periodically. Well, if cloudy weather is established, onions will have to be dried using the well-known "blowing" method, which means drying the bulbs in a draft in well-ventilated rooms. For this, not only a balcony, a gazebo or a veranda are quite suitable, but also a reliable canopy.

In the event that the onion grew in extremely unfavorable conditions of a cold, as well as a rather rainy and cloudy summer, experts recommend freeing the bulbs from their husks as much as possible before drying, literally exposing them. All bulbs will certainly acquire new scales during the drying process and will subsequently be much better stored.

Shell nets will be an excellent solution for drying onions: the bulbs do not have to be systematically turned over, since such nets perfectly let air through literally from all sides.

Well, now a little about how you can understand whether the onion is dry enough or not. To do this, a hand is pushed into a pile of bulbs - if it goes through with difficulty, it is necessary to continue drying, but if it easily and freely passes between the bulbs, then the onion can be safely sent for storage.

If you do not plan to weave familiar braids from onions, then after drying, the bulbs are cut off on both sides. Usually all the roots are trimmed and the feathers are trimmed, leaving only necks four to six centimeters long.