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

Thanks for the response and also the tip about the sand and also about the possibly of not composting the affected onions. My compost tends to run on the cool side so i will take the onions out of there and dispose of them another way. I was surprised to see the onion worms as there has never been anything of allium family planted there. Talk about RAIN, yesterday was one of the nicesst days EVER until 4 pm when the skies opened up and thunder storms rolled through unril about 8 last night, one after another, with absolute torrrential tropical rains, incrdible thunder and lightning, which is how almost every storm we have had in the last 6 or 8 weeks has been. there was even a tornado a few weeks back that touched down about 30 miles north of here, and did terrible damage. Tornadoes are not a common occurence in New Hampshire!

Unless you had a huge amount of rain and also have slow-draining clay, it doesn't matter. I'd go ahead and harvest them if they're ready now. As long as you dry and cure them properly, they'll be fine. Hooray for the rain! Dawn

Carol I hesitate to judge a variety of any species on one season especially here. The pink/purple or whatever you want to call it Bronze D' Amposti is the best overall non white/yellow I've grown especially for a milder onion. Like I said I have seeds for a supposed to be large red super sweet onion from Australia I will try to grow next year. First we will have to see if the seeds germinate. If it does well and any bolt which I can't imagine them not doing I will save some seeds next summer. I purchased the Bronze D' Amposta seeds from Baker Creek. Johnny's sells seeds for the Red Bull but says it if for latitudes 43-65. Mine is 37 but in the past it did well here. Can't remember if I grew it one or two seasons. The only place I see Stockton Red seeds listed are at Seeds of Change. I have never ordered from them but may order a few of them for comparison purposes. I don't remember ever growing them before. Dawn I had very similar issues with Red Candy Apple . Basically I feel I could go at least a year and not add anything to my soil and produce a good crop of most veggies. I do add at least something to the garden every year. I shred and add all the leaves along with manure and alfalfa compost. And on the onions and garlic I usually add extra. I just can't believe that it is the soils fault that Red Candy Apple won't size up here. I feel it is more weather related. I think some onion varieties are like varieties of other crops. They don't tolerate the heat and wind very well. I expected the SE CO varieties to do at least decent here as they were developed in this area. Was somewhat surprised at how well the Bronze D' Amposta did though. I haven't measured any bulbs from the garden yet that went over 5 inches but several very close. I think at least 2 of the 4 left in the garden will go over 5 inches in diameter. I also had more conformity in size this year. Jay