[zestymordant]

Hi,

Believing onions to be indestructible I was going to leave my onions in and pull out as necessary but as you can see from the attached pictures some seem to be splitting and others seem to be getting the tops eaten. Should I just pull them all out now? They've been in the ground since mid-March.

Cheers all!

[Alastair-I]

Once more than half the tops on the bed have folded over I carefully lift and dry the lot - initial dry in the open air under the woodshed roof, then clean and trim before bringing indoors.  Onions are not indestructible and need to be carefully lifted and dried for storage if you want to keep them for use through until next years crop.

Mine maincrop onions (Sturon and Stuttgarter Giant) have been drying in the woodshed for almost a fortnight, although I still have some small red onions (Florence Long) out on the plot as the tops are all firmly upright.

[8doubles]

Yes, you can dig (not pull) them out as soon as the tops fold over. Make sure to dry them out properly before you try to store them.

[zestymordant]

Thanks, I'll do it over the next few days.

[zestymordant]

One other thing, will they have stopped growing by now? Some are fun size and I'd leave them in if they were going to get bigger.

[mattwragg94]

One other thing, will they have stopped growing by now? Some are fun size and I'd leave them in if they were going to get bigger.

To be honest i would pull them, generally most people pull them at the end of august as this is when onions stop growing, i too have some green gorwth on my red onions and they are left in the ground, but i will be pulling them on the next dry day.

Also did your onions bolt, if they do they will definately not grow anymore!

[ryetek]

One other thing, will they have stopped growing by now? Some are fun size and I'd leave them in if they were going to get bigger.

As suggested by others harvest them now and dry them out before storage. I have had ours out almost 3 weeks now and intend to string them up this weekend.

There was a thread on the forum a few weeks ago dicussing how small onions are this year. Here is a link to the threads:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=97576.0
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=98056.0