When to remove onions from the garden for storage

It would seem: harvesting onions is the simplest of all gardening chores, because the turnip needs to be pulled out of the ground and the feathers trimmed. But not everything is as easy as it seems at first glance. The most difficult thing is to determine the time when to dig onions. If you start harvesting a little earlier or, conversely, miss the right moment, this will certainly affect the keeping quality of the bulbs – the vegetable may not last until the next season.

When onions are removed from the beds, how to save the turnip crop by digging it at the right time – the answers are in the article.

When to harvest onions

The timing of harvesting a crop such as onions depends on several factors at once. In this case, it is necessary to take into account such things as:

• Vegetable variety. After all, onions are not only onions, in Our Country they often grow leeks, shallots or a family variety, you should also not forget about the set, from which the next crop will grow.
• culture maturation rate. Ordinary varieties of onions ripen, on average, in 70-75 days.
• Weather conditions can also affect the speed of ripening, because in the cold summer the turnip will stay green longer, and the intense heat, on the contrary, will quickly dry out the feathers, speeding up the harvest time.
• Soil moisture is of great importance. Watering the onion beds must be stopped 10-14 days before the expected harvest date. If the last month of summer is usually rainy in the region, the gardener should harvest before the start of the rainy season.

In general, it is very difficult to determine exactly when to remove onions from the garden for storage. Inspection of the bulb, testing it for taste or some other methods will not help here. The main rule of the gardener, in the case of turnips, is: “Feathers will tell you when to remove the onions from the garden.”

This means that the gardener should pay more attention to the aerial part, and not inspect the bulb itself. When the harvesting time approaches, feathers manifest themselves in this way:

1. They begin to turn yellow and dry.
2. They lay down on the ground.

So, as soon as the green part of the onion has turned yellow and instead of a vertical position has taken a horizontal position, it’s time to pull the turnips out of the ground.

Optimum time for onion harvesting

In different regions of the country, the moment of yellowing of turnip feathers may occur at different times. Weather conditions also contribute to this – they can also affect the rate of ripening of the bulbs.

In most regions, the turnip harvest time coincides with the last days of July. As a rule, the rainy season begins in August, nightly cooling, which leads to rotting of the bulbs and infection of plants with fungal diseases.

One thing can be said, if the weather is cool and cloudy, and the onion feathers are still green and are not going to fall, you can wait until the end of August. It is only important not to miss when to remove the onions from the garden, and for this you will have to regularly inspect the plants and follow the weather forecasts.

What to do if the onion does not turn yellow

Sometimes it also happens that the gardener is already ready to remove the onions, and the time seems to have come, but the feathers do not turn yellow and do not dry, on the contrary, they stand in an even green order. In this case, the onion-turnip needs a little help, because in the allotted time, the turnips should have been saturated with all the useful substances and “dressed” in a strong husk.

If the feathers are not drying, and autumn is already on the nose, or rains are forecast to come, you can try the following:

• dig the ground under the bulbs with a pitchfork and raise the turnips a little;
• cut the roots of plants with a sharp shovel;
• rake the ground from the bulbs, exposing the heads;
• undermine the onion with your hands, depriving the roots of contact with the nutrient medium.

In this case, it is important to understand that it is the roots that need to be trimmed, in no case should you cut off or mow the above-ground part of the plants. Wrong tactics will lead to infection of the bulbs, while depriving the roots of nutrition contributes to the drying of the tops and the outflow of nutrients from the aboveground part of the plant to the underground.

When you need to collect onions is understandable, now you should decide how to do it correctly.

Rules for harvesting onions

Onion turnip will be well stored only under the necessary conditions:

• if it is assembled correctly;
• if the turnips are healthy and well protected by the husk;
• if the storage conditions are met.

It is necessary to remove the onion, following these recommendations:

1. Choose a dry sunny day for cleaning. Well, if the weather, besides, it will be windy.
2. Look at the meteorological reports for a couple of weeks in advance – there should not be rain.
3. From light soils, the onion can be easily reached by hand, for this it is enough to pull the neck. In denser and drier soils, the heads will have to be dug out with a shovel or pitchfork.
4. You should not dig directly into the bed, you need to retreat at least 10 cm from the row with onions – this way the heads will not be damaged.
5. The dug onion can be left in the garden, with its heads folded to one side, if the weather promises to be dry and sunny. Otherwise, the crop should be taken under a canopy, laid out on the floor of an attic or barn.
6. Turnips should be well ventilated, so it makes sense to create a draft in the storage and lay the crop on a grate. You need to fold the onion in no more than three layers.
7. You can trim the feathers when the neck is dry. This will happen somewhere on the 10-12th day after harvesting from the beds.
8. Cut the onion with sharp scissors, leaving 8-10 cm of the neck. The roots are also cut, leaving shoots of 1,5-2 cm. So, the bulbs will be stored for as long as possible.
9. The cut onion is dried a little more and sent for storage.

Dug up onions are usually stored in wooden boxes, boxes or baskets. Weaving braids from onions and hanging them from the ceiling is very effective – in this case, the feathers are not cut so short, leaving at least 15 cm.

It can definitely be argued that the bulbs need dry, cool air and a minimum of sunlight.

When to Harvest Other Varieties of Onions

All of the above applies to only one type of culture – onions. But gardeners grow other varieties, the rules for harvesting which may differ.

For example, leeks should not dry out, on the contrary, this culture is harvested along with green feathers, only slightly trimming their tops. Determining the right harvest time is simple – you need to read the recommendations of the seed manufacturer, find out the duration of the growing season for a particular crop.

External signs of full maturation leek no, this variety can remain in the ground until the first frosts begin. Even in this case, for the first time, you can use covering material, and pluck the right amount of vegetable if necessary.

Before storage, leeks are cleaned of damaged leaves and washed thoroughly, then they are folded head to head and placed in a cool place (refrigerator) in a plastic bag.

Onion sets cleaned in the same way as regular onion. The peculiarity lies only in the small size of the set and, accordingly, in its early maturation. When the feathers turn yellow and fall down, it’s time to pull out the sets. After that, the bulbs are aired, dried, the feathers are cut off, leaving 2-3 cm, and sent for storage.

family variety grows in nests, the bulbs are elongated and small in size. This variety also ripens a little earlier than the usual onion variety. Some gardeners store such onions in nests, others divide them into separate bulbs – practice has shown that this is not important.

There is nothing difficult in harvesting and storing onions, the main thing is not to miss the right moment for harvesting and dry the heads thoroughly before storing them in storage.

If harvested too early, the scales will not stiffen and protect the heads from cold and damage, and later harvesting can cause the bulbs to rot in the ground and infect them with infections.