Anyone who grows onions needs a little patience, because onions usually need at least four months from sowing to ripen. However, the time varies from variety to variety and it depends on whether winter or spring onions have been planted.

When the herb has withered and snapped off, it's harvest time

When are which onions harvested?

Depending on the sowing date, the harvest time of the different onion varieties also varies.

  • Onion sets planted in March and April can be harvested from around the end of July into September
  • Onion sets planted in September and October can be harvested from around the end of June the following year
  • seed onions sown in March or April will ripen from August to September
  • seed onions sown in August will ripen from June to July of the following year

How do you recognize maturity?

In mid-summer, the finished onion prepares for the winter. It now stores all the nutrients in the tuber. As a result, however, the tube leaves are no longer adequately supplied. As a result, they slowly die off. The tip of the leaf begins to turn yellow and dry up. This process slowly continues downwards. If the gardener observes this process, he can speed up the dying of the onion leaves a little with the digging fork. He carefully digs into the ground under the onions and lifts the bulbs a little. With this measure, the roots are loosened from the soil, they can no longer absorb water. Therefore, they then stop growing and the green onion no longer receives any nutrients at all. Within a short time, the tube leaves of the onion died off completely.

The buckling of the foliage

Even if you don't help with the digging fork, you can tell when the onion is ripe by the fact that the onion leaves have almost completely yellowed and may even have snapped. The formerly usual bending over of the still green foliage is not recommended. It should lead to faster maturity, but the opposite is true. The onion does not ripen properly, it only reaches an "emergency ripeness". This has a negative effect on subsequent storage.
This measure makes it easy for pathogens to enter and the onion begins to rot.

How are onions harvested?

When the tube leaves of the onions have yellowed and already snapped over, it's time to harvest. It is best to choose a dry, preferably sunny day so that the onions can be easily pulled out of the ground.
But even when the weather is wet, the ripe onions must be removed from the ground, otherwise they will begin to rot. The earth-encrusted, wet onions then need a longer drying phase.

  1. Take a digging fork and use it to carefully lift the bulbs out of the ground.
  2. During a dry period you can leave the bulbs on the land to dry out.
  3. If the summer is rather rainy, shake the excess soil off the harvested onions and store them in airy boxes or on wooden grates.
  4. If you have a covered drying facility, you can hang the onions in bunches under the roof to dry.

The drying phase should be completed after about fourteen days.

Storage of onions

After drying, there should be no more moisture in the onion leaves, the outer skins of the onion are "rustling dry". Now the harvest can be stored. To do this, proceed as follows:

  1. Shake the excess soil off the bulb, helping gently with your hands.
  2. Cut off the dry roots.
  3. Cut the dry leaves to a length of 5 cm.
  4. Place the onions in an airy basket.
  5. Avoid closed plastic containers.
  6. Store the onions in a dry, airy and dark place. Cellars and unheated pantries are suitable.

Category:

Vegetable garden