Onions

maimover
maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭
edited October 2020 in Vegetables

this Is Thursday’s onion harvest grown from seed...


Comments

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow!! What a haul. Congrats.

  • tomandcara
    tomandcara Posts: 712 ✭✭✭✭

    @maimover Beautiful and very impressive. Now, what are you going to do with all those beautiful onions?

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @tomandcara storing and hoping to get some dehydrated (never dehydrated anything until this season)...

  • tuliv4
    tuliv4 Posts: 17 ✭✭✭

    Beautiful! Nice harvest.

    Do you have a favorite fertilizer or garden prep you do for your onions?

  • tomandcara
    tomandcara Posts: 712 ✭✭✭✭

    @maimover I love dried food like tomatoes, peppers and summer squash. Never thought of drying onions, but then I never had a crop like yours. Keep us posted.

  • annebeloncik
    annebeloncik Posts: 62 ✭✭✭

    Wowie! Nice. I'm going to try onions next year. I know who to look to for advice! 😁

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @tuliv4 thank you! we put a derp layer of mushroom soil down and tried to keep them weeded, planted in bunches this year (for the first time) instead of rows; that’s it

    @tomandcara I think I’m gonna try dehydrating the tomato 🍅/scraps this year as I’m hearing how useful it can be. It sure is a “learning field” out here. Thankful for all the great ideas that pop up in conversations...😊 how does the squash hold up/ rehydrate flavor and texture wise?

  • tomandcara
    tomandcara Posts: 712 ✭✭✭✭

    @maimover Just make certain the summer squash are tender before dehydrating. We cut about 1/2 inch slices. They re-hydrate well and we have used them in soups, lasagna sometimes in place of noodles, sometimes with noodles, casseroles, etc. you can season them and eat them as a strange "chip"

  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭

    That's impressive! I always find bulbing onions too difficult to grow from seed, so I switched to using transplants. This year I tried potato onions (a type of multiplying onion) and shallots, and they were much easier to grow. Scallions do well from seed.

    If you have extra onions, you can pickle them. There are some water bath canning recipes around for pickled onions.

  • annbeck62
    annbeck62 Posts: 1,028 ✭✭✭✭

    Awesome harvest

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I learned an important thing about growing onions this year: fungus gnat larvae LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to eat onions!

    Of course, I was trying to grow Egyptian onions in the house. 10,000 gnats later and no onions....

    Next up, spider mites for my indoor garden. (And I was trying indoors until I got a handle on outdoor pest prevention!) Sigh.

  • John
    John Posts: 163 ✭✭✭

    Well done! Got me all excited-hope mine come out that good. :)

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @VermontCathy i will definitely check into the pickled onions; sounds like it could be interesting. We pulled the second crop yesterday; no where near as many or as big in size or numbers.

    @shllnzl that doesn’t sound like much fun....

    @Johanna thank you and good luck. The second crop had way too many weeds. I think that’s why the size difference. Will know better for next year.

  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @maimover If you can help me with my small-onions problem, described at the link below, I would appreciate it very much!

    https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/844692/the-trouble-with-tribbles-er-onions/p1?new=1

  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @maimover I so would have enjoyed and utilized those onions.

    I definitely have not had fun this gardening season. I had the above problems with my indoor garden and my limited outdoor attempts were only half successful.

    My indoor herbs and houseplants have not appreciated the multiple pest treatments, most are sickly and some have died. Even organic treatments can affect the plants already weakened by pests. I have not treated my orchids, so hope bugs didn't lay eggs there. (Trying to keep orchids alive in a low humidity desert environment is an exercise in optimism.)

    I have a couple of large containers of tap water that I let sit for days before I use it for my plants. I am now permanently adding a mosquito disc to each one; the bacteria that kills mosquito larvae in water also works against fungus gnat larvae. I will use this method indefinitely as insurance against any future soil contamination. Gnats have been eradicated, I hope.

    BTW: Fungus gnats will enter your drains to feed -- I can only hope that the soaps, etc., that go down the drains will be enough to kill any eggs that they may (?) have laid down there.

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @shllnzl I’m sorry you had such a hard time with all those darn gnats. Hopefully you got things under control and move forward with your plants. I actually brought a bunch of plants in last winter, lost quite a few of them, possibly due to “bugs” that came in with them. This year I’m hoping to build some kind of cold frame to put herbs and things in. Most of them would overwinter well if they were in the ground but being in containers I’m not so sure. It surely is a learning experience 😊

  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,987 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @shllnzl

    @maimover "Most of them would overwinter well if they were in the ground but being in containers I’m not so sure."

    I suspect they'd be fine in containers if well protected with covers and so forth. Since they would not be deeper in the ground where they get some thermal protection, you'd have to provide that outside the containers.

    Of course you could also bring containers inside for the winter if you have the space.

  • maimover
    maimover Posts: 359 ✭✭✭

    @VermontCathy (and by the way I live your screen name). I’m maimover because I want to move to Maine. When aol first came into existence characters were limited, so mai mover it was lol. Anyways... last year I brought a bunch of herbs n my houseplants back in. It was just a mess; lost bunches of herbs that probably would’ve survived our mild winter here if left outside. There were tiny little spider looking like bugs. The constant having to deal with houseplants and the mess! 😕 So this year they’re staying out bit I hope to make a cold frame up on the deck for some things and hopefully some micro greens. Planning on using some of the insulation from the butcher box boxes on the bottom to cover the holes in the deck.

  • ltwickey
    ltwickey Posts: 369 ✭✭✭

    Beautiful harvest! Congratulations! It's been a while since I tried onions. You give me hope!