I’m certainly convinced and won’t do it again. At least not on a small scale. Not worth the time or worry. On the other hand, it seems to me that 2 wheelbarrow loads of onions would rot in storage in the long term.
Is that a big wheelbarrow or a small wheelbarrow? I’ve got a big wheelbarrow and I can’t imagine having it full of onions. Shoot, it must be about 20 gallons. I don’t really know offhand.
My wheelbarrow probably holds closer to 40 gallons. But this was onions with tops and roots still attached so the actual onions were about 1/4 of the total. The onion bed that year was also 40 feet long by 3 feet wide. Day neutral onions don’t store for more than a month or two. I learned a long time ago to chop the onions and store them in the freezer. I usually have half a dozen gallon bags after harvest. Also, the onions I grew that year were Sierra Blanco, though it was known by a different name at that time.
I’ll have to measure my wheelbarrow, but I think that it is as big as they make. I know that my wheelbarrow is the same size as that that my father used for the dairy barn.
Good information about storing onions in a freezer.
Thanks for providing the details of growing onions. My bag of sets has small and larger sizes. Looks like I will be harvesting the larger ones as scallions.
I’ve had very good success doing what @Fusion_power described. Either growing my own from seed or buying plants from dixondale. I usually do Vidalia type short day onions. I plant mine out in early feb. The only trouble I’ve had is some years small white grubs infest the roots which often kills the plant. If you fertilize they get huge. Ready to harvest mid-may.
I should clarify that I’m putting out either live or dormant plants. Fusion talked about both methods - sets and plants. I have not done sets.
I dehydrated the year I had a bumper crop of huge onions (from seed). Then I put the dehydrated onions in the freezer. They were equal to fresh in cooked dishes. The following two years I had very poor crops, but the dried onions keep for years in a freezer in little space, and are great for camping, motor home or cottage. Now I am buying store onions for the first time in several years. I think the gophers did in a lot in last year’s garden.
I love to start my onions from seeds indoor. Two reasons: to sooth spring fever in the middle of the winter and protect my soil from diseases that can come with the sets.
When do you start the seeds?
Just started onions few days ago, didn’t even emerge yet. Last year it was December. Also started small pot of parsley - it always takes forever to it to start and some lettuce for using now. Next would be hot pepper in Feb and the rest - March - April
Thanks, Galina.
We are always late. We promise ourselves to start earlier but ….
Don’t worry too much. I start onion seed in the second or third week of January to set out in mid to late April. Figure out your normal date to put them in the garden and back up 3 months.
I’ve been growing the green onions from the grocery store only harvesting the tops. They do great, but never seem to come back the next year. Is there a variety I could get seeds for to harvest tops and continue year after year?
Are the wild green onions scattered around edible?
“Nodding onions” are edible in all their parts -all the onions are, and it’s generally safe, if not always entirely palatable, to eat them. As a rule if it smells oniony it’s OK to try. But be aware that they can grow side-by-side with “death camas”, which is deadly in small amounts, and the bulbs are similar; if you’ve been handling nodding (wild) onions then everything you pick up can smell like onions. But the nodding part of a nodding onion won’t be confused and is good to eat and cook with.
They also intergrow with the regular edible camas, which was a staple for Native Americans. The blooms of the two are distinctive, but the bulbs are very similar.
Have you had success with garlic yet?
If not, try German extra hearty hard neck and bonus, you’ll get some scapes too.
I keep plugging away at it, always trying different things. I am still convinced that garlic is actually day-length sensitive, like the bulbing onions that we are accustomed to buying at the grocery store. I’ve tried to buy garlic from a local CSA, two different ones of them actually, just what extra they have in order to use as seed stock that is known to do well with sizing up at only 34° of latitude, but they only want to supply their shareholders. It is about time for me to try again reaching out to a customer whose uncle growers a large patch that produce thick stalks, asking if he will sell some. I’ll keep trying at garlic until I find a strain that works here.
In the meantime, I finally took the time to figure out how to order from Kelly Winterton of Utah. He is still spreading the love of potato onions. Here are the plants I ordered: Garnet Mountain potato onion, Coral Mountain potato onion, Green Mountain (original strain) potato onion and Dakota potato onion.
In addition I picked up Scottish syboe multiplying green onions, as well as one each of the following packets of onion seed: Green Mountain landrace, Dakota landrace, Scottish syboe and Perpetual leek from him.
I had first read his adventures around 2015 or 2016 after reading about potato onions in a Mother Earth News article.
Thank you, I need to search that one out. I actually got a couple of scapes in last year’s harvest but didn’t use them quickly enough and they dried up and turned tough. Such a disappointment since I absolutely love the garlic scape paste dipping sauce at the restaurant that serves Chinese-style hot pot soup. Mmmm, I’m making myself hungry just thinking about it.
Talk to text spelled it wrong. It’s German extra hardy.
It gets snowed on and everything, and it doesn’t care
We have a Tupperware container that is meant to keep vegetables fresh and we forgot about the last of our scapes in the fridge and when we found them months later, they were still perfect.
Here was my text to my MIL on November 11th:
Look at our garlic scapes we picked in June and forgot about in our fridge! We are eating them this morning. Tupperware FridgeSmart containers are amazing!
I reckon this time I ought to pop mine into the fridge!
I’m growing some of the German Red hard neck. I really like them. More punch to the garlic and the bonus scapes. Thinking about trying some other hard necks this year.
