Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: A Reyt Tayty on July 15, 2013, 21:29
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I was reading about this on the RHS website. It says to stop watering after they have bulbed up. Does this mean after the foliage has yellowed and dropped, or does it mean after the bulbs have become apparent? Mine are making smashing bulbs now, but they haven't yellowed or dropped foliage. Do they still need water or not?
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While they are still stood upright you should be ok for watering as they will continue to swell. At the first sign of flopping stop all watering otherwise you could get the floppy top growth getting rotten and the bulbs not storing
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I haven't watered my onions at all this year apart from watering the sets in initially and they are the largest onions I have ever grown. They are growing in deep mulch as opposed to soil so they have driven roots down into the decomposing mulch below.
When I have watered my onions they have never stored well and think they must have been too moist before storing them.
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Interesting point!
Our onions have reasonable bulbs so far, but this dry spell means we give them a slurp once a week, (maybe twice this week as it's so hot) and still pop in a little feed of liquid manure to be on the safe side,
The way I see it is that when they begin to topple, it's their way of saying 'that's enough', and from then on, you hope for sunny weather to dry them off!
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Thats another good point.
After they topple, is it ok to leave them for a while and just pull them as required, or can they be left in the soil for a good long while?
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Once the tops start to die back, and eventually topple, the bulbs won't grow any more and if you want to store them the priority is to get them dried out thoroughly.
Some people ease the roots out of the ground and leave them for a few days before lifting, but I've never been quite sure why. :unsure:
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For the last 3 years I have lifted my onions and dried them, dried them and dried them again and still I get the grey mould between the fleshly leaves of the onion (neck rot?) Perhaps I have been lifting them too soon?
This year I have got an excellent crop of onions from sets and seed, and I have been watering/feeding quite often. This year I am going to let them die back naturally and use them as required.
I don't foresee any problems, after all they are bi-annuals and normally they would regrow for seed, but they will be out of the ground before that happens.
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I'm doing both this year. Have lifted half this morning as the odd one or two had been showing a bit of white rot and I didn't want it to get any worse. The other half, which are mainly rather large Stuttgarter giants, are being left to fend for themselves and flop. Should be huge by then.
Splitting the harvest is also hedging my bets and some sort of insurance policy of losing the whole lot to someone hopping over the fence and disappearing with the lot. It has happened on our site when certain crops are expected to be at their prime, and such folk are on the list of pests to cater for.
I'm very happy with the overall crop and as far as watering goes, I have soaked them once about 2 weeks ago. The soil was bone dry this morning to a fork's depth when I dug it over after lifting.
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my japenese onions i planted last nov finally fell over on the weekend so eased them out and am now in the process of drying them up, they have really come out well...just a thought found some old red baron that i mispalced earlier thsi year and did not grow out...will these overwinter>?
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my japenese onions i planted last nov finally fell over on the weekend so eased them out and am now in the process of drying them up, they have really come out well...just a thought found some old red baron that i mispalced earlier thsi year and did not grow out...will these overwinter>?
Jap winter onions dont keep well and need to be eaten first.. Traditionally I start mine on 1st May as green onions and they are all eaten by the time the main crop are ready to pull - so mine dont get time to dry off at all.
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I'm cross as my 'heat treated, non bolting' red onion sets have sent up flowers this week (which I nipped off) and aren't that big so I guess they won't be storing. In contrast my cheap wilko sturon sets have grown huge and not bolted or run to flower at all!
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I usually find my red onions are the first to bolt, but this year for some very strange reason they are doing remarkably well. Generally though this dry spell will have stressed them and bolting is their response.
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I certainly won't be paying out for the heat treated ones again then as it obviously makes minimal difference!
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Once the tops start to die back, and eventually topple, the bulbs won't grow any more and if you want to store them the priority is to get them dried out thoroughly.
Some people ease the roots out of the ground and leave them for a few days before lifting, but I've never been quite sure why. :unsure:
When drying out to store, how much of the top do you take off? Right down to the top of the bulb?
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You only remove the top growth once it it paper dry and crumbly. That way you know they are dry. Don't cut anything off until then. When you think they are dry give 'em a couple more weeks to dry before storing.
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I can't tell you how happy I am that I asked that before I went gung ho and lopped 'em off. :blush:
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Don't forget to use any thick-necked onions first as they are the hardest to dry completely, and rot usually starts at the neck. Thick necks will always result from the onion having bolted, but sometimes there are variations between different bulbs which haven't bolted (I have no idea why!)
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For the first time last year I stored my strung onions under the carport in the fresh air all winter instead of in the shed and not one went mouldy ;)
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My onions have turned out to be a real mixed bag good sized ones and piddlers, a few have toppled over and I've started using these
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havent watered mine at all end there gettingreally big but last witer i dug deep channels and filled them with manure replaced the soil on top to form a ridge think that helped