HOW TO HARVESt, cure, and store onions from the garden

It’s early this year but the onions are ready to come out of the ground and be stored for winter. It’s all about the timing when it comes to onions. I did manage to get them in the ground early this year. I believe it was the first thing I added to the garden this season, and I’m assuming that’s why the harvest is ready earlier than most years.

HOW TO KNOW WHEN ONIONS ARE READY TO PULL: The method I go by is once the green tops bend and fold over it’s a good sign they are ready for harvest. I normally give them a few more days up to a week and then test them for readiness.

I grab an onion at its neck, the area where the bulb meets up with the green top, and gently pull from the round. If it pulls out nicely without breaking away leaving the onion in the ground they are ready. You may get a couple that don’t release from the soil easily but that’s to be expected it. Just dig around it and pull it from the garden.

HOW AND WHAT I USE TO LET THEM CURE: I’ve done this several ways over the years there’s no perfect method but what needs to happen is for them to stay dry. This year I draped them over a pallet that was right where you see it under our deck on the walkout basement side. The pallet had wood pellets on it for our pellet burner and has never been moved so I used it. 

I did check the weather to make sure we had at least a week with no rain. If rain was in the forecast I would have moved the pallet into our garden shed to avoid letting the onions get wet.

All I did was drape the green portion over the pallet boards to let them cure. I wait until the greens turn brown and crispy, cut or tear them off, and add the onions to a crate to keep in my cool basement. The onions normally cure in about a week’s time, depending on the humidity and temperature. As long as they can get some air movement and stay away from moisture they will eventually cure.

I never have a problem with storage spoilage. I just recently used the last two onions from last year’s harvest. I just keep an eye on them and rotate them in the crate every now and again. If they look like they may go bad I dice them up and put them in the freezer. 

I avoid a grocery store if I can. There are some things I pop in for like cheese and coffee but other than that we try and grow what we eat. Everything from animals to fruit and veggies. I enjoy having animals and a garden and I don’t mind the task of canning and preserving. I have a good setup going and over the years I’ve figured out easier ways to do things and I try and batch can things so I never fire up the burner without having a full load to process.

Last night I baked 6 loaves of bread and put them in the freezer. Doing it in bulk really helps. I only have to do the process once, turn on the stove once, but have several loaves of bread ready for future eating. 

I made some versions of zucchini loaves: regular zucchini bread, chocolate chocolate chip zucchini bread, and lemon zucchini bread. All the recipes are the same in the main mixture then I add the cocoa and chips to one and the lemon and zest to another. I line up 3 big batter bowls, add the main portion of the recipe to each, and then the extra bits to the special bread. It’s so easy to do a big batch with no extra effort.

I really enjoy going to the freezer on a cold winters day and getting out a fresh/frozen loaf of delicious zucchini bread 🙂