I planted onions in June this year and from my understanding when the green top withers, falls over and starts to turn brown they are ready for harvest, right? Are they ready? ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) Well, they don't seem to want to wither at all even though some of them decide to lie down. It is almost 4 months now so should I disturb them or just give them another month or two? HELP!!!
KK Ng that is right. From looking at your photo your onions look like they were planted to deep. The onion bulb should be above ground and about the size of a tennis ball of larger. Pull one of them out that the tops have flopped over on and see how large the bulb is. One of the best ways to plant onions is to make two rows of them about 1 1/2 ft. apart in mounded rows like you have so there is a about a 3 or 4 inch trench down the middle of the rows. Plant the onion plant with about 3/4 of the bottom of the plant showing above the ground. The part where the bulb will be forming. In the trench in between them sprinkle Blood Meal. A handful or two would be enough. My rows where eight feet long and that is how much blood meal I put on them. Apply it every two weeks until you see the bulb starting to form near the bottom of the plant. Then stop applying it. The bulb part of the onion needs to be more above ground so get's sunshine to develop properly. Last summer we planted a one pound onion variety using the above method. We had some onions that were over a pound when we harvested them. But they were not good keepers. So I ended up having to cook them up and freeze them. Post a pic of how big one of the onions are after you pull it. Hope that helps.
Those don't look ready enough to harvest for storage. If you want to check their size, carefully dig around one or two without disturbing the roots below to see how large the bulbs are. You can use them at any stage and don't have to wait for their tops to die before using them. edit: Here's an image of onions ready for harvest.
What variety of onion did you plant ? Some varieties are that size at maturity and will never get larger no matter what you do. They sure look good,, I would have already eaten half of those. Tops are the best part.
OOK ... I guess I'll wait a little longer before I check and harvest them. Tooty2shoes, I planted my onions from seed and had them transplanted when they were about two weeks old. OK I understand what you mean but Blood Meal is not available here and I only use compost. Thanks for the tip and I will try to apply it when I next plant onion. Onions are not planted in this country and our onions are 100% imported. My seeds are also from another country. I saw the one pound variety on YOU TUBE and how those onion bulbs were sitting almost above the ground. Thanks Gianna, I'll wait for awhile longer. Mart, according to the packaging it is called Walla Walla Onion from Plantation Products Inc., Washington State. Hey guess what, on the packaging it says "Harvest in 110 days." I think I'll wait. Yes the tops looks delicious and luckily I have spring onions too! Sojerd thanks, I will wait for awhile longer but I do wonder with the kind of weather here do you think it will fall over?
If your compost is loose you don`t have to do this but mine will pack so I run my finger around all mine about a month after I plant them so mine have room to grow larger. Walla walla`s should get pretty good size but then again if no one grows onions where you are,, there must be a reason and whatever that is may be why yours are smaller. Wait a while and see how they do. Commercial growers here only have roots covered by soil and very little of the bulb. I passed by a commercial onion field once and it looked like a bunch of baseballs growing.
Hi KK--I think that ultimately it would fall over...however I judge when to lift my onions by their size. When they are nice and big (big enough for me), I step on the foliage bending and breaking them so that they lie on the ground. Then I wait for therm to go yellow and then I lift them. Well, that is the way that I do them almost every year. It was so wet this year; however, that I just lifted them when I thought they were ready and hung them up to dry out. Do you know exactly which onions you have growing there?
Mart, the earth is normally loose when I started to plant something. I prepare the bed by turning the soil from the bottom up and add as much compost as I think necessary. I think I am going to find out the reason soon why onions are not commercially planted here. Sojerd, am I wrong to say that what you meant to say is onions instead of toms? If it is toms you are talking about then I am really confused! Anyway the type of onions that I planted are called Walla Walla. Today I had a real close observation and I don't really like what I see if I think that is what I saw. It was late and so I did not make a closer examination. Tomorrow maybe.
Hello There, KK-- Yes I did mean "onions". I typed that wrong. Thanks for letting me know...I went back and changed it. I know the walla-walla types. I wanted to grow them here, but our climate is all wrong for them and the Vidalias. I ultimately did not grow them because they have a poor disease resistance and they do not keep well. The idea is to eat them fresh. My soil and my country are just not suited for these onions. I shall enjoy seeing yours when they are ready for harvesting. Generally onions planted as "sets" should be close to being ready to harvest 100 days after planting. If you planted your onions as seeds, then about 150 days. Having said that, I would not want to lift the onions until there has been at least a little bit of yellowing of the foliage. I hope that they do not begin to shoot.
Thanks Sojerd, there is some yellowing of the foilage at the tip. Anyway I'll will deal with them when I get back.
Inspected the onions for a candidate to check whether they are ready for harvesting. Withered tips. ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) This is the chosen one with most of the tips withered and it is the largest in the patch. Looks like it is sitting on top of the ground! ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) Move the mulch around it and had a sneaky suspicion that it is sitting almost above ground. It's out! ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) Just a slight yank and it is out of the ground, yikes! It is just slightly bigger than my thumb, more like a giant spring onion in disguise! Tooty2shoes, they are above the ground alright and I guess it must had been the weather here which is not suitable to get real onions Well looks like another plant to be added to my cannot plant list :'(
Hi KK-- I feel that these (did you call them, Walla-Walla onions?) are not nearly as big-around as they should be. My onions always just sit on top of the soil with only their roots in the ground. To me, it looks like all is going well, just not near ready I don't think.
Thanks Sojerd I like your confidence. So far I had not harvested the rest yet, maybe I'll wait till end October.
Yesterday Becky needed some onions and I told her to help herself from the onion plot. The whole lot! ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) Well she harvested the whole lot ..... the onions leaves tempted her to take all of them out. Anyway I guess that is the largest they will grow in our weather condition here. Spicy Veggie Broth ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) This is what we had for lunch and it was delicious. Never tasted such sweet onions before.... yummie! Ko-lok yoke ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden ) This was dinner and it is a sweet sour pork dish, usually with cucumber and tomatoes too! .... yummie Still had a fair bit in the fridge and looks like there is going to be some kind of onion dish for the next few days. These onions tasted good even though they were only thumb size and I guess I'll continue to plant them until all the seeds are used up.
