onions harvested

[yopper]

As of last week the onions are on the drying rack in the barn out of the rain,tops and roots trimed. Will sort and store in about a month. A good crop for the crazy weather we had here. will store 3 bu. for myself and the rest will go to Ohio to my sons as none of them got a garden because of all the rain. It rained 15 out of 17 days in June where they live. How was your onion harvest???? YOPPER

[kath]

Glad to hear you had a good harvest, yopper- hope your children know how fortunate they are!

Mine was early and sad. Downy mildew struck this year and we were deluged with rain when they were at a critical stage and should have been kept dry. Since they were predicting even more rain, I decided to harvest them before that happened and they hadn't even begun to fall over yet. That was way back in early July. Tried to dry them in the basement with the help of a fan and dehumidifier but I've been using them up fast because they are rotting. They'll be gone before the end of October, I think.

Next year I'll be more watchful and try to include them in the fungicide spray routine.

kath

[tjg911]

hey yopper did you need the backhoe to dig them like past years?

i dug mine in early august and they are curing in my shed. i grew copra as always and they did very well. i had trouble getting red wing from pinetree seeds so i had to order them from parks. then when pintree seeds couldn't ship the red wing they sent me red zeppelin instead. normally the only red onion i grow is red wing but i hated to toss a packet of seeds so i decided to try them.

2/3 of the onions i grow are copra and 1/3 is red wing but i split that 1/3 of the bed to be 1/2 red wing and 1/2 red zeppelin. both look good so i'm curious to see how well the red zeppelin store and taste. red wing stores almost as long as copra so i have my doubts that red zeppelin will store that long but i'll see.

i have enough seeds of each that i probably won't buy any red onion seed next year. germination drops off a lot in the 2nd year so i never use onion seed from the prior year preferring to buy fresh seed. i'll need to buy copra seed as i don't have enough left to chance it.

tom

[yopper]

HEY Tom I could have used the backhoe on a couple of them but that old backhoe cranks hard and I could not talk the wife in to cranking it for me so I just dug them by hand.By the way do you have to shoe that moose like you do a horse? GOOD GARDENING TO YA YOPPER

[salix]

Pulled all my onions on August 23. We've had a wonderful growing season, with long hot spells and few rainy days. A few almost freezing nights as well. Anyway, pulled the onions as there was a week of unsettled weather with a good probability of lots of rain. The Candy onions were good, as usual. Was disappointed with Ailsa Craig, they were no larger than the Candy, and judging from the thick tops are not likely to keep very well. Copra performed well as usual. Red Wing looks pretty good, nice sized bulbs, but Red Bull was very small - will probably be tossing them whole into stews. Tom, I have been wanting to try Red Zeppelin for a few years, but the seeds never seem to be available and get substituted with Red Bull or some such, please post on their keeping ability. Have left the leeks and shallots in the ground for a bit longer. Some years I have to chip the frosty ground to recover the leeks!

Kath, a couple of years ago we had such a season as you describe. I chopped all of the "iffy" bulbs (about 3/4 of them) and froze them immediately. That worked out very well, and super time saver for such things as soups, stews, chill etc.

[kath]

Originally Posted by salix

Kath, a couple of years ago we had such a season as you describe. I chopped all of the "iffy" bulbs (about 3/4 of them) and froze them immediately. That worked out very well, and super time saver for such things as soups, stews, chill etc.

Glad to hear you and others had such a good year!

Thanks for the suggestion, salix- my freezer space is pretty limited but small packs of onions shouldn't take up too much room, I guess. I've been trying to scout out the worst of them by feel and smell to cut up as I'm making sauce lately, trying to catch them before they rot, but freezing most of the rest before it's too late is probably a good idea. DH is most fond of raw onions as he eats a lot of sandwiches, but I'll just have to buy those.

kath

[TomNJ]

Hi Yopper,

My onion crop was nice this year - first planting in virgin soil at our new place in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. We are at latitude 37, right between long day and short day. I planted 380 onions from plants (Dixondale), mostly long day. Ace, Copra, and Candy did quite well with most around 3" and some up to 4". Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, Big Daddy, and Yellow Spanish struggled, bulbing late with more variability in size. The first three plus Red Zep are invited back next year.

The garlic crop also came in nice with many in the 2.25" to 2.75" range. German Red, Music, and German White were the largest, while Russian Red and Estonian Red, two of my favorites, were smaller & variable due to small seed stock from my shady NJ garden. All are invited back next year, except for the German White since it is so similar to the larger Music.

The first picture below shows Copra and Red Zeppelin, and the second picture is of Candy and Ace. The garlic shot has German Red on the left and Music on the right. These are just my seed garlic bulbs for the next planting in November - the rest of the 400 garlic are still hanging under the porch roof.

TomNJ/VA

[tjg911]

correction in post #3 they sent red bull NOT red zeppelin.

i needed my garden cart which is holding a drying rack for the copra onions and to get it out i need to move the other onions whose frame is on saw horses. so i processed my onions 3 weeks earlier than normal.

the copra necks were dry maybe 1 or 2 had a bit of moisture. 40 pounds of copra.

the 2 reds tho were not dry. i cut off the tops and after i got the garden cart out i put them back on the frame for another few weeks. 29 onions of each but they are larger than copra, haven't weighed them yet but guessing 7-8 pounds of each.

usually i dry all the onions about 8-9 weeks so this was only about 5-6 weeks.

tom