Onion is an indispensable vegetable in our lives, so many gardeners prefer to grow it on their site. It is not particularly demanding on the conditions, but still there are some features of cleaning, digging and storing onions. About when to clean the onion, how to do it correctly and how to dry it, we will tell in this article.
Cleaning time
In many dishes, we are accustomed to using leeks. It is important to know not only how to properly plant and grow this very useful vegetable, but also when to harvest onions. It is necessary to collect exactly the mature root crop, but at the same time prevent its overripeness. If you remove the leek from the garden too early, then pathogens of various diseases can get into it. And when the vegetable overripes, you can forget about its normal long-term storage. It is recommended to harvest onions from the beds in late July – August. Much here depends on the climatic conditions in which the site is located. But since the time frame of this process is quite large, most gardeners want to know how to more accurately determine the moment of ripening of leeks.There are several reliable ways. One of them is considered a mathematical method, based on knowledge of the average ripening period of a given vegetable.
If we add 68 – 83 days to the day of onion planting, then we can approximately get the harvest date.
Here it is also necessary to take into account the climate, the characteristics of the root crop variety, weather conditions and other factors. Therefore, it is considered more reliable to determine the ripening of the leek and the day of its collection from the garden, focusing on the appearance.
The first signs of ripening vegetables will be yellowing leaves and dry stems. You can carefully dig out a few bulbs with a pitchfork to determine if they are ripe. When examining the onion, pay attention to its hardness, while the neck should be dry and soft to the touch, like the roots. Experienced gardeners, in an effort to help the leek ripen faster, about a week before the expected harvest date, mow the tops of the root crop. Another way can be called raising the leek to the surface of the soil with a pitchfork or shovel. Winter onions ripen a little earlier, as it is customary to plant them in late autumn. But the recommendations for the timing of its cleaning are almost the same.
How to dig
Digging onions is recommended in sunny and clear weather. If the weather is damp, then the collected onion will subsequently become spoiled, because it will rot intensively. Once upon a time, our grandmothers did not cut the feathers of the bulbs, but waited for them to dry well, and then braided them into braids. So it was more convenient to store the root crop, hanging it in any chosen place. How is it customary to dig and store it today? It is necessary to carefully dig each bulb, and then get it out of the ground with your hands.
In no case should you pull the vegetable by the tops. When removing the bow from the ground, you should not knock it on a hard surface, as it is quite sensitive to damage. It is best to wipe the bulb after digging. After you pull it out of the garden in the morning, you need to leave the vegetable to dry in the sun. Until the evening, it is necessary to shake it up and periodically turn it over, then the root crop will dry better. After that, the bow can be identified in the barn, in the attic or on the balcony. There he should be for complete drying for a couple more days. A few hours after harvesting, cut off the tops of the vegetables, leaving only about 10 cm, as well as the roots, leaving only a couple of centimeters.
What to do in the event that it suddenly rains, and the harvest can no longer be postponed? We’ll have to dig a vegetable out of wet soil. After that, it will need to be thoroughly washed, as well as cleaned of tops, roots and husks. It is also important to lay the crop in one row and let it dry well for about three weeks in a normally ventilated area. In this case, the culture in which young scales are formed during these days will be stored just as well as the onion, which was harvested in clear weather.
How to dry
Those gardeners who are daily on the site during harvesting can dry onions right in the garden for about 7 to 12 days. To properly dry a vegetable, it must be laid out on a flat surface so that the bulbs lie in one direction and the feathers look in the other. Root crops are advised to be laid in rows and in one layer. The sun will be best able to disinfect your crop, which needs to be turned over periodically.
Since there are still many warm days in August, it will not be difficult to dry the culture. Bulbs that, for a number of reasons, begin to deteriorate, must be removed. Those that are already well dried can be woven into braids or folded into a stocking according to a long-established method so that they can maintain their excellent appearance for as long as possible. It must be remembered that well-dried bulbs have a beautiful dark golden color, and their scales normally separate and rustle in the hands, the tails should also be completely dry.
Video “Cleaning onions”
A video on how to manually harvest onions, how to dry them and how to properly store them.
