Look, we’re big fans of onions, too, but we’re not expecting you to eat your way through the entire garden before the frost comes! No, no. So, let’s learn about harvesting and storing onions and ensure that your autumn and winter dishes have the all-important signature flavour that your summer dishes are known for!
How to Harvest Onions
Once your teeny-tiny onions seeds or onion sets are all grown, it’s time for harvesting! You’ll know that your onions are good to go when they begin to yellow in the soil and when their foliage begins to topple.
After they've been like this for a week, carefully dig them out of the ground using a fork. But be gentle - bruising a perfectly grown onion is enough to bring a tear to the eye! If you do damage an onion in the harvesting process, we recommend making use of that onion as soon as possible as bruised onions may begin to rot when left in storage.
Once they’re removed from the soil, lay your onions out on the ground or on a wire rack. You should leave them here for around a week, but if the weather is wet, be sure to dry them undercover! If you’ve got a tunnel or a greenhouse - they’ll feel right at home here! Onions must be cured before they can be stored - this means drying the skin to prevent mould or rotting.
How to Store Onions
When it comes to storing onions, you’ll know that they’re good to go when the skins are papery, the leaves are shrivelled and the roots appear dry. Go ahead and remove the roots and any dead skin before storing.
All onions should be stored in a cool, dry and well ventilated area. They should also be stored out of direct sunlight. Unheated rooms in the house or even the garage are perfect spots to keep your onions. Pack your onions into a net bag or sack and hang them up wherever you’ve got the space. It is important, however, to check on your onions every so often to make sure that no bad onions ruin your batch!
You can expect your autumn-planting onions to stay well until early winter, but spring-planted onions can last through into the next spring!
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What are you waiting for? Your growing journey starts right here at Mr Fothergill’s! Shop our fantastic range of onion seeds today and let us help get your vegetable seeds growing.
If you have any further questions about how to store onions, how to store onions from the garden or have any curiosities about any of our other products, don’t hesitate to contact us or take a deeper dive into our gardening blog!
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