Onions 2017

[Father'sDaughter]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Not even close to being ready to pull, count the leaves, they wont even start to bulb up yet this time of year.
Worth

That's what I was thinking. Dead or almost dead tops are what I've always been told to wait for before pulling onions.

[rnewste]

What may have thrown me off was the fact that 4 of the 10 had sent up a seed pod shoot. I had understood to pull them prior to them going to seed. True?

Raybo

[Father'sDaughter]

For the few I've had send up flower stalks, I've just treated them like my hardneck garlic -- cut them off as early as possible and leave the onion to finish bulbing.

[AlittleSalt]

When they make a seed pod is what I call second year onions. Onions are biennials. They produce those seed heads the second year. The seeds from those seed heads start the biennial process over again.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by rnewste

What may have thrown me off was the fact that 4 of the 10 had sent up a seed pod shoot. I had understood to pull them prior to them going to seed. True?

Raybo

Okay if that happened it is over big time.
Many things can make this happen early.
Normally an onion will not put out a seed pod until I think its sixth leaf or so.
If there is a temperature swing in the middle of the first year it will do the same thing because it thinks it went through one winter.
Each leaf is a layer in the onion.
You want to get that onion to put on as many leaves as it can before the daylight hours get to the length it takes for it to start bulbing up.
If a storm hits and knocks down all of the plants during this time it ruins the crop like it did mine last year.
I dont care what anyone may think or read stomping down and cutting off tops does NOT make bigger onions.
Normally an onion here gets around 13 to 14 leaves on it before it starts to bulb.
A long daylight onion here will just keep putting on leaves and never bulb up.
And yes when the onions are falling over and dying it is time to pull.
Or you can leave them in the ground here and pick fresh in the fall and winter on into the spring when it cools and they come back up.
I still want to do an indoor monster onion with grow lights.

[greenthumbomaha]

I tried onions in a pot indoors and they were the opposite of monster. Not even golf ball size. They wanted outside. Even outdoors with tlc they don't get as big as your forgotten heroes. They are good keepers though. I am getting hundreds of onion seedlings this year because of our warm spell in February. I thought it was garlic seed but I dug some up and it was red onion.

I still have my garlic perfectly hard and keeping the vampires away in that "bedroom" from last summer. Hmm where would I put them if that table is replaced with a bed. Maybe living fashionably isn't all that grand. Oh heck, yes it is!

- Lisa

[AlittleSalt]

This is what not having much of a winter, too many storms, and high winds have done to this year's onion crop. The storms started back in February. The onions have looked like this ever since - some are growing bigger. This is why I let the volunteer tomato plant grow along with the onions.

[AlittleSalt]

Just a picture and thoughts today. It's time to get the onions out of the ground - they've grown all they are going to. It is 4 weeks earlier than I have ever harvested onions, but when the leaves start turning brown - it's time. There's still enough onions to last for months - just no real big ones this year. The small onions are very good in soups - we look forward to that. There are three 35' rows of them. Definitely not a loss - just a little bit of disappointment.

In the plastic container is a golf ball to show size comparison.

[Worth1]

I have some over wintered from last year.
Once again the rain beat them to the ground and stopped growth.
Four or five to be exact.
I am going to pull them and have them with fried fish today.
Today seems like fried fish and fried okra weather for some reason.
Worth

[AlittleSalt]

Well, that's the quickest I've ever harvested onions. It looks so much better there without the onion leaves bent down to the ground. They've been that way for months.

I already got the dried oak leaves in the bed and am going to get 4 or 5 tomato plant clones started to grow on the part of the fence where the sun is shining on it. I very closely looked at the onion roots as I prepared them for the drying table - not one sign of RKN or anything else wrong.

Worth, that fried okra sounds like it'll go well with the chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy I'm cooking tonight.

[Worth1]

Salt that big storm we had come through and broke their necks is what did them in.
Decided to make salsa cruda out of the onions.
Worth

[AlittleSalt]

It's bad when your Elephant Garlic is bigger than your onions.

Most didn't get as big as last year's crop. It wasn't from lack of roots. There are more scapes this year. I wonder how long they'll keep?

We'll eat the smaller ones and save the larger ones for planting later this year.

[Worth1]

I tried to grow elephant garlic here one year and they all croaked.
I had no idea when to plant them.
This years lack of any cold weather pretty much spelled small cloves for any garlic.
My place was covered in pests and insects all winter long.
Even stink bugs.
Worth