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When to harvest onions

13 years ago

I planted some candy onion from seed and most died. So I went to the local garden center and bought some. I had a few from seed that made it So they got planted. The ones from seed caught up and are still growing strong. The ones I bought are slowing down now. The tops are green but starting to lay down. Should I wait until they brown out before digging them?

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Comments (4)

rhubarb_stalker
13 years ago
If you scroll down to the bottom of this webpage and then type "harvest onions" in the search box, you will get a wealth of information on this subject.
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cheapheap
13 years ago
I have not waited for mine to completely go brown, mostly because I am eager to use the spot for transplanting something else. It sounds like you will have to stagger your harvest. Your question actually does not come up that often, and the answer is not as straightforward as I would have thought.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg0720492514944.html
is a thread started six years ago that has excellent advice.

My favorite answer is the first response in the thread linked below (http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg0712253021698.html)

It would be nice to hear more experiences.

Best of Luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/allium/msg0712253021698.html
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You harvest onions when the tops fall over. That means they're all done growing. The tops will still be a little green when this happens, but there have been times when I haven't gotten around to harvesting them until the tops were completely dried up, and they were fine, but then again I live in a dry climate, so they probably just cured out in the ground. I've never had luck with onion sets though. If they don't work for you either, next year you may want to try onion plants instead of sets. They'll look like bunches of green onions.
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I'd cut it off and then either pull the onion now and use it or let it size up and remove the central stalk (which may get hard) and use that onion first. What's happening is that the onion thinks it's on it's second season of growth and it's making a seed head rather than a bulb that stores energy. This happens more with sets just due to the way that they are produced and the recent heat didn't trigger it. Since onions are day length sensitive, the long day varieties that you're growing in PA will wait until they get around 14 - 16 hours of sun a day and then start to make bulbs and I'd guess that's starting in the next week or so. What you'll see next is that the onions will probably start expanding up and out of the ground so that you'll see at least the shoulders as they continue to grow. In around 3-4 weeks, the necks of the onions will start to get soft and the tops will fall over. This is the sign that they are done growing and you can harvest them at that time ... I'd guess middle to end of July for you. Once harvested, remember to hang them somewhere for a few weeks in order for them to cure and let the necks dry down so that you get the best storage out of them.
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A few of mine have fallen over, but the leaves are still quite green. These are some of my red ones, the yellow onions are still standing tall, but have not seemed to bulb up yet. They were transplanted out on 4/15. Should I harvest the ones that have fallen over, or wait a bit longer until the leaves have turned brown?
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wcthomas
13 years ago
I harvest my onions when the neck (where the stem meets the bulb) is very soft when pinched. At this stage I believe the bulbs have stopped growing, even though the leaves are still green.

TomNJ
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Mark
13 years ago
Onions still put on more growth than you can imagine from the time that the first one falls to when they all have fallen. This usually takes only a week or 2.
The number I read was something like 10% of their growth happens in the last few weeks. So usually I wait till about half have fallen on their own, then I kick down the other half, wait a week and dig them.
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