HARVESTING & CURING ONIONS: When, Where & How for I’itoi and Bulbing Onions

May means it’s onion harvesting time in the low desert. In this video, I’ll show you the different types of onions I’ve got growing – (including my favorite type, I’itoi), talk about when to harvest, and give you some tips for curing and storing them, too!

Introduction 00:00
I’itoi Onions 00:38
Shallots & Green Onions 04:31
Bulbing Onions 05:33
Bolting Onions 06:16
How & Why to Cure Onions 07:10
Where to Store Cured Onions 08:59

Learn more:

How to Grow Onions – 10 Tips for Growing Onions

What To Do When Onions Bolt

How to Grow Onions – 10 Tips for Growing Onions

#iitoionion #growinginthegarden #gardeningtips #vegetablegarden #growyourownfood #organicgarden #desertgarden #arizonagarden

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it’s May and around here that usually means it’s time to harvest onions in today’s video I’ll show you the different types I have growing including my favorite ET toy onion we’ll talk about when to harvest and I’ll even give you some tips about curing and storing them too I’m Angela from growing in the garden my Garden’s in Mesa Arizona I want to help you succeed even if you’re gardening in tough conditions in the low desert of Arizona onions are usually harvested around the beginning of May but keep an eye on your onions and look for signs of Readiness as early as the end of April or as late as the end of May these are ET toy onions they’re a multiplying onion that is well suited to Growing here in the low desert they’re easy to grow and Thrive just about anywhere you plant them in your garden they tolerate poor soil they grow bigger in rich soil sun shade it doesn’t matter if you plant one of these bulbs they will grow and multiply and you’re going to have a huge clump of onions at the end of the season another thing I love about these onions is you don’t have to wait until the end of the season to harvest and enjoy them you dig down and pull off a little bit of the clump you separate it from the rest of the onions and they’ll continue growing you can take it inside and use it I peel off this outer skin chop up the entire onion it’s all edible if you want to harvest the entire Clump the best time to do that is when you see several of those lower leaves starting to Brown that means the bulbs have formed and you can Harvest at any time there’s a wide harvesting window you can begin harvesting in May all the way through July these stocks will continue to die back the longer you wait we’ll talk more about curing later but if you want to skip that step and not mess with curing it you can let those stocks die back completely in the ground and let them cure in your garden another incredible thing about these onions is if you want to pull them and harvest them earlier you can still cure them and plant them next season the bulbs will be smaller but it will still work so you really can pull anytime and plant at any time this is the fun part so satisfying to pull up these onions that have been growing for months I harvested these a couple of months ago and the bulbs are significantly smaller they didn’t get as long to develop but there’s still lots of bulbs and each one of these can still be planted no matter when you harvest the onions if they’re teeny like this one or all the way up to the biggest bulb it’s important to give them good air flow and let them cure if you stick them in a plastic bag or somewhere that will trap the moisture they will rot and that will prevent them from sprouting next season keep them dry the heat doesn’t bother them as much as moisture wood once those greens die back if you want to leave that big clump of onions in the ground you can but instead of multiplying next season that Clump is just going to send out individual shoots you can get so many more Onions by pulling up those onions dividing and replanting in different areas so these tops are tipping over and there’s lots of brown frond it’s a really good time to harvest these onions I think that was the last Clump so many onions this year so you want to remove as much soil as you can but don’t wash these onions that will definitely slow down the curing process and promote rot there are lots of different types of onions and in different parts of the country some are easier to grow than others for example shallots I’ve tried to plant them at different times of the year several different times and had minimal success I planted these shallots back in the fall same time I planted the ET toy onions and I’ve got a couple of sad looking shallots here but really not much at all for the several dollar pack package of shallots that I bought so there were four shallots in the bag two of them didn’t Sprout and the two that did look okay but nothing great these scallions were also a bit of a disappointment this year I have grown green onions with better success other years but because they didn’t get much sun they really didn’t grow that well I’m not saying don’t grow these types of onions I’m sure other gardeners have grown them very successfully but for me they aren’t as foolproof as something like the e onions or the other bulbing onions that I typically grow here in the low desert I grow short day onions and as we get close to Harvest Time those lower leaves are going to begin to tighten around the onion and that will cause the tops to flop over that tells you the bulb has stopped forming and it’s getting close to harvest time the tops of several of these onions in this bed have already flopped over when most of them do the same I’ll push the other ones over and turn off the watering to this bed and wait about 10 days and then harvest my onions so that means I’ll probably have to hand water some of the other plants in this bed but turning off that water allows the plant to dry out naturally and it will cure better I’ve also had a decent number of onions bolt this season you know it’s bolting because the central stock gets thick and it starts to form a flow bulb on the top once this happens the onion won’t cure as well and it’s important to harvest and use them right away couple weeks ago I went through this bed and harvested all of the bolted onions I took them inside chopped them up and put them in my freeze dryer freeze-dried onions are an excellent way to preserve bolted onions you can also freeze them or dehydrate them and use them as onion powder looks like I’ve got a few more bolting I’m going to go ahead and harvest these bolted ones get them out of the bed and let the other onions finish up these all have this bolting stem they’re not going to cure well and they won’t last as long but they still taste just as good so what happens during curing and why is it important this onion has just flopped over it’s just beginning the process of tightening these outer skins around the onion but this Central stock is still really green and although it didn’t bolt if I didn’t cure it it wouldn’t last as long because rot can enter right through here so when you cure an onion all of these are going to dry and tighten around the onion to protect it from rot after curing all of this stem has withered and dried and it is protecting this onion inside so what’s the best way to cure onions if you live where it’s warm outside but not hot putting them in a shady location with good air flow is perfect if it’s hot outside above 80° the onions will cook so you need to bring them inside I set up a wire rack and cure my onions inside the ideal temperature is 75 to 80° lay the onions out in a single layer and provide a fan for good air flow let the tops D back naturally you’ll know they’re ready when the tops are all brown and if you give it a little tug they pull away easily from the onion all these types of onions the regular and the ET toy can be cured in that same way remember don’t trim any Roots don’t trim off the tops or wash anything off just let them cure naturally for the best onions once the necks and Stems are completely dry at that point you can trim the roots and stems to about 1 in if any are soft or starting to soften use or discard those right away the best place to store your cured onions is in a cool but not cold dry and dark place I put my onions in these bags and put them in a hall closet it’s not super cool in there but it’s the coolest spot in my house this was a great harvest this season I’ll save some to plant and I can’t wait to share the rest [Music]