Easy Does It
Onions are bulbing. Disturbing the plants now will reduce the storage life of the bulbs. Keeping your onion patch free of weeds is important, but from now until harvest you’ll want to weed by hand. An onion hoe may damage bulbs.
The keeping quality of onions depends on strong and healthy plants. So you should irrigate your onions in drought. Since onions are generally shallow rooted, they should receive a minimum of one inch of water each week. I irrigate my onions twice weekly if we don’t get adequate rain. Use a rain gauge near your garden rather than depending on weather reports to measure precipitation.
As soon as the majority of the onion tails turn yellow-brown-green, use the back of a steel rake to knock the tops down horizontal to the ground. Allow the tops to soften and start turning yellow-brown before harvesting.
For maximum storage life, never remove onion skins from the bulbs. The outer layer reduces the transpiration rate of the bulbs, extending their storage life.
I braid most of my onions, allowing the bulbs to remain attached to the tops. For storage, I hang them in an open garage, in the shade. The onions with the smallest necks are the best keepers and should be saved for later use. The first onions you should eat are those with fat necks, for they have a shorter shelf life.
The bulbs of braided onions should be separated by gently pulling without disturbing the outer skin of the other onions.
I store unbraided onions in small baskets hung from the ceiling of the garage. This allows air to circulate through the onions, minimizing rot problems. Check the baskets of onions every two to three weeks and remove any onions that are softening.
More about Bloom
–Jan Fergus, via email
A: Bloom is a class A biosolid. Class A biosolids do not contain heavy metals. Today 85 percent of all biosolids generated in the U.S. are class A. The only heavy metals we are concerned with are lead and cadmium. Metals such as iron, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium and manganese are essential plant nutrients or needed by soil organisms.
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