We’ve finally harvested out our onions! So, we get to talk about the next steps in the onion harvest process!
As we mentioned several days ago, it’s important to wait for dry days to harvest those onions. The reason is that this helps maintain the onion’s protective layers, which aid in the onion in long term storage. We’ve had an objectively wet season this season, so that was a real challenge for us this year! But, we finally got a good streak of no rain for several days, allowing us to harvest.
An important thing to perform after the harvesting your onions is to cure them. Basically, this means you’re drying them out a little bit, by laying them out in a single layer in a place that is both dry and features good airflow. This process sets them up for long term storage. We typically cure our onions for at least 7 to 10 days. Some years, we do this process inside, sometimes we do it outside. Ideal curing temperatures are above 60 degrees, which can be a tall order for us northerners this time of year. Since we’re a week into September here, we opted to do it inside this season.
You can cure your onions with the tops on and roots attached. Or, you can cut the top off and remove the roots with scissors. Some people prefer to do the cure with the tops and roots on, claiming it “reduces disease.” We suspect this might be a myth, since we’ve done the exact opposite, don’t get diseased onions and have found no difference whatsoever. We think it’s a bit cleaner and easier to work with onions that have been “trimmed up,” so we trim both the roots and green top prior to curing.
Oh, and like with potatoes, we need not clean our onions. It’s totally fine to knock off the excess dirt once they’re dried. There’s a surprising number of microbes that will help protect your onions and washing them runs the risk of removing them. Just give them a good rinse when you go to use them.
Once you cure your onions, it’s important to store them with excellent airflow. A very common storage technique is to use old pantyhose, which are hung in your storage area. Since we do this every year, we purchased decent quality, purpose built “onion storage socks” that provide nice Velcro based access to our onions. This allows us to easily sneak onions when we need them without a bunch of hassle. If you’re looking for a storage reference, note the mesh type bags that you see bulk onions sold in at the grocer. (And, you can also re-use those bags to store your onions!)
Properly cured onions can last a rather long time, typically between six and twelve months, even when stored at typical room temperatures. We don’t have any “special” storage places, we literally keep our onions at room temperature. Even that is less than ideal due to us using wood heat for our primary heating method. But, it works and that’s one of the reasons we’re comfortable growing so many onions!
At a certain point, you will see your onions start to sprout again, essentially putting on a new green stalk. These onions are still perfectly OK to eat, but they can get a little bit more spicy! But, if you’re looking for a good “very long storage” method, this is a good point to consider an alternative preservation technique. We’d recommend blanch and freeze, which will get you at least another entire year of storage! We do usually start to see spoilage occur on some onions, typically starting around the 8 to 9 month mark.
There can be slight differences between onions and their storage ability. Some are have longer range, some will feature less storage hardiness. It’s good to know what you can expect with your varieties as you might want to use some onions sooner than others.
We had an excellent onion season this year, possibly one of our best seasons ever! Some are even “Walla Walla” sized! Our onions seem entirely unphased by the wet season and perhaps even benefitted from it. We do grow from seed, entirely, and have found this significantly better than using onion sets. As always, if you have any onion questions, we’re an open book here!
