correction re how to harvest onions

[tjg911]

it's that time here and i pushed over the copra yesterday. the red wing and red bull aren't ready yet. because i knew it was close to doing this i read how to proceed and found something a bit different than i have been doing and suggesting to others.

in the past i have done this (the red text) and it works but yesterday i reread my Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, a small pamphlet called "All the Onions".

i have always said that you push over the onion greens at the neck using a bow rake when 25% of the onions are starting to fall and losing their bright green color and then after a few days dig them and leave them in the garden until the tops are drying, about 7-10 days then i move them to the shed to cure until about mid october.

so when i read their write up yesterday it says after pushing the greens over at the neck to leave them in the ground until the tops are dry for a few days depending upon the weather (i might go a week to 10 days as i can't see the greens drying that fast) and then at that point dig the onions and leave them in the garden a day or 2 for the soil to dry so you can remove it from the bulb.


replace my red text with their green text, everything else in black text is still correct.

now my way has worked and my onions cure and store just fine but this year i'm following the green text method. i suspect it isn't going to matter that much but they wrote the book not me and maybe they'll cure and store better.

i tend to follow the rules and color within the lines but that's me.

tom

[yopper]

HEY Tom I do pretty much the green method But if it is going to rain I will get the roots out of the ground even if the tops are still a little green. I have been seen pulling onions in the rain!!!I did plant copra last year for the first time per your recomendation and they did real good. but some how the candy and the copra got mixed. I used my last onion last week and I think it was a copra.This year I was ordering onions for myself and three other people and forgot to order copra for myself. DANG getting old is fun!!!! GOOD GARDENING TO YA YOPPER

[tjg911]

hey yopper how's things in the up?

i have had onions in the final stage and ready to dig in a few days and got serious rain. it really did not seem to harm them re storage. my copra are pushed over in the ground but the red wing and red bull haven't had their greens pushed over yet. we probably are getting rain today but i'm leaving the copra in the ground, the greens don't look much different than when i pushed them over.

i bet digging in the rain is no fun especially since you can't use the backhoe as it may get stuck!

your last onion most probably was copra not candy because while candy stores a good amount of time it won't store 9-10 months which copra does without breaking a sweat.

tom