Many summer residents determine the period when to remove onion sets from the garden for storage experimentally. This is due to the fact that the duration of vegetable ripening may vary depending on weather conditions, the planted variety, and the provision of certain care. Learning to determine the readiness of the crop for harvesting is the main goal of gardeners growing onion sets, since this material will be used in the next season to produce turnips. If the bulbs are not mature enough or become overripe in the garden, they will become unsuitable for further planting.
How to determine the ripeness of onions and speed up their ripening?
To determine when to harvest onions, you need to know the signs of full ripening of the sets. Experienced summer residents claim that the seedlings are ripe if:
- the feather began to acquire a yellowish tint and dry out;
- the planting begins to sink into the soil;
- the onion neck becomes thinner.
When the indicated signs of seed maturation appear, it can be removed from the garden bed.
Preparing for cleaning
After determining the date for harvesting the onion, it should be prepared for this procedure. Before harvesting, you should refrain from watering the plantings, since it is recommended to harvest in dry soil. Next, you should calculate the date so that it falls on sunny days. If the weather is damp or raining, the harvest must be postponed, since when the raw bulb is removed, the crop may rot.
The seedlings should be harvested by digging them out of the ground. This must be done very carefully, since damaged bulbs will not only be poorly stored, but will also become unsuitable for planting. Digging occurs along with the feather. The soil is carefully wiped off the head. You cannot shake off the soil, as damage may appear on the surface of the onion, which will negatively affect the shelf life. After harvesting the entire crop, it should be spread out on the beds to dry.
If harvesting was carried out in the morning, when dew accumulates on the surface of the soil, the spread crop should be covered with film. If the future planting material was grown in the middle zone, and the weather is cloudy and sunny days will not appear soon, the onions should be dried under a canopy.
In order for the crop to be well stored, it is necessary to comply with other conditions for harvesting it from the garden. This applies to the choice of weather, pruning, watering.
What weather should I start cleaning?
Many summer residents are interested in the question of what weather to start harvesting seedlings? In order for the sets to have good shelf life, they should be harvested only in dry weather. If there are no sunny days planned, it is possible to harvest the ripe crop in cloudy weather, but the onions will need to be thoroughly dried. To do this, the dug up vegetable can be laid out in the fresh air under a canopy, placed in an attic with good ventilation, or using an oven heated to the minimum temperature.
Trimming
In order not to damage the set during collection, its feathers will need to be thinned before digging. To do this, trim off any excess feathers.
How to trim onions after harvesting from the garden? Immediately after digging, the vegetable along with the green part is laid out on the beds. After this, the feathers are trimmed, leaving a 5-centimeter tip. In addition to the feathers, the roots are also trimmed. The trimmed and dried harvest can be stored in wooden boxes, stockings or tied into braids.
There are several ways to weave onions, each of which is suitable for storing and setting. In this case, pruning should be done, leaving leaves 8–10 centimeters long.
Some summer residents do not trim feathers until late autumn and winter, but this will only complicate the storage of the crop and reduce its shelf life. Therefore, it is necessary to trim the feathers and roots immediately after harvesting the seedlings from the garden bed.
When to stop watering?
To bring the ripening period closer, it is necessary to stop watering several days before the start of harvesting. If the seedlings are grown in the middle zone, watering should be stopped in the last ten days of July. At this time, the above-ground part of the set is formed, and in the absence of watering, the growth process of the bulbs is activated.
This feature is due to the fact that when the soil is moistened, the bulb directs all its forces to the growth of greenery, and the head is immersed in a state of rest. If the soil dries out, the processes reverse. In other areas, it is recommended to stop watering the seedlings 2 weeks before harvest.
When the bulbs are actively forming, they will produce arrows that need to be removed. To do this, the arrow is cut off at the root. Otherwise, the harvested crop will not be able to be stored until the next sowing season.
Cleaning time
To determine the timing of harvesting the sowing, it is necessary to take into account the average period of its maturation, which is equal to 70 days. Most often, onions ripen in August-September. Also, when determining the timing of onion harvesting, the time of planting and the peculiarities of growing the plantings influence. You also need to take into account the region in which the onions were grown.
In the Urals or Siberia there is no way to predict summer weather. If it turns out to be hot, the onions will ripen on time, and if it’s cool, it will take longer to ripen. In these regions, the heads should be dug up after the green part of the plant has dried out and its neck has thinned.
When these signs appear, the crop must be harvested within 1 week; if you skip this period, the plant will form new roots. Such material will not be suitable for storage. If you start harvesting earlier, the husks will not appear on the set, and the neck will not have time to become thinner. Such seed will not be suitable for further planting.
Moon calendar
Some experienced summer residents are confident that the best way to determine the optimal time for assembling seed sets is to use the lunar calendar.It helps to calculate favorable lunar phases for harvesting work in relation to sowing and other garden crops.
In the absence of a lunar calendar, some summer residents recommend turning to the luminary himself. So, you can get a good harvest if you start harvesting the seeds during the full moon. This type of harvesting allows the vegetable to be given the greatest nutritional value.
Moreover, any day indicated in the lunar calendar must be dry; if it rains, it is recommended to postpone digging until the next favorable date.
Country life hack
Some gardeners are convinced that its keeping quality depends on how the seedlings were dug. There are a number of life hacks that allow you to carefully extract the crop from the soil, preserve its quality and shelf life:
- It is best to dig up vegetables in the morning, since it is at this time that the soil is most loose.
- To avoid damaging the heads, use a fork. If the bulb is damaged during harvesting, it should be consumed.
- Pulling onions from the soil or open ground is allowed only when it has rained before harvesting and softened the soil. When a vegetable is pulled out of dry soil, the stem breaks off, causing the head to quickly rot.
- To grow sets, you should use the best varieties that have good keeping quality. Hybrid varieties are not suitable for obtaining seed material.
- You can harvest turnips before the first frost, which occurs in August-September in various regions.
If the above rules are followed, the collected seeds will be perfectly stored until the next sowing season. Also special attention needs to be paid drying onions.
Drying
To answer the question of how to store onion sets before planting, you need to know not only its storage methods, but also preliminary preparation, which consists of drying. Drying the seed takes 2–3 weeks. During this time, the bulbs absorb all the beneficial substances from the green mass, and their scales dry out.
Drying the sets involves spreading the crop on a dry surface in a thin layer. Turn the onions periodically so that they dry evenly.
In order for the bulbs to dry, it is necessary to provide several drying stages. The first of them is to dry it in the garden. This stage lasts only 1–2 days. Then the crop is placed on the veranda, attic or other ventilated area. Onions are stored there for 2 weeks. After this, the roots are trimmed, the feathers of the onion are cut off - the feather and roots are thrown away, and the onion is sent to a room with a temperature of 25-30 degrees for a couple of days.
What to do if the seedlings rot? In this case, the spoiled bulbs should be thrown away and the rest of the harvest should be dried in the oven at 40 degrees for several minutes. This treatment will increase the shelf life of the sets, destroy all pathogenic bacteria, and the onions can be stored until the next sowing season.
