Harvesting Onions

[Fleurisa]

My onions aren't showing any signs of the leaves dieing back, the only ones which have bent over were flattened by the recent rain and wind. Should I use a fork to gently ease them up slightly from the ground to encourage them to stop growing? Or just leave them to it? I have got some whoppers this year and only a few bolted.

[Dorothy rouse]

I am jealous! I've always done ok with onions, having nice strings hanging up in garage through till about February ,but this year complete disaster! Planted sets out in Feb maybe, took them up today,cos they have all died back,but they are scarcely any bigger than when I put them in, about the size of pickled onions. Red ones ( in a different place) were better,not brilliant, lifted them few weeks ago as they had started to bolt.

So well done, I'll be having to buy supermarket ones.


DottyR

[rustylady]

Whereabouts are you Fleurisa?

[Fleurisa]

Whereabouts are you Fleurisa?

I'm near to St Helens and Warrington

[Florence Fennel]

If you put that in your profile Fleurisa, it will appear in the top right hand corner of all your posts and we will not forget where you are! I harvested my onions last month. You may be right about easing them up a bit if they're massive now, but I'd be tempted to leave them a bit longer

[Fleurisa]

Location added!
The 'what to do now' email I got from Gardeners' World mentioned lifting onions, but I like to rebel against them a little, so I thought I'd check on here first.

[rustylady]

I don't lift mine till the leaves start collapsing.

[horticultural_hobbit]

tease them out, if they want to come out; they will. I've had a rubbish year for onions. Must have planted hundreds of sets. White ones were better than red ones. But they were all diddly.

[leonmc0708]

No right or wrong for eating em the key is storing and best to wait til they are ready - flopped. Then dry em in the greenhouse on some wire mesh

[solway cropper]

I've lifted all my set-grown onions and they are drying nicely. I still have a block of seed-sown bulbs that are still putting on weight so they can stay there till they decide it's time to give up. There can be no hard and fast dates in gardening, you just have to use a bit of judgement.