Kitchen Garden Forum

With the prospect of frosts soon I have lifted my maincrop onions today for drying, (Ailsa Craig and Bedfordshire Champion raised from seed). Most of them still have plenty of green foliage attached. Does anyone out there have any recommendations as to whether I should cut off the foliage now to possibly speed up drying, or is it better to leave it on and allow it to dry naturally?

You should leave it to dry off naturally. It's amazing that the foliage is still green after all the dry weather that we have had over the past month! (Not counting this week of course!)

You will need somewhere to lay them out to dry - we lay them out in the greenhouse which has worked for us for several years.

Our onions have been lifted for a while now and have dried off nicely.

Hi Fred,
First off I must congratulate you for your choice of onions both varieties olduns and really tasty.
Do not cut any foliage off your onions let them simply die back in their own time. If like Glallotments you haven't got a green house make a rack of chicken wire horizontal to the ground lay the onions on the rack and cover with polythene (and tie securely) and leave them there until the foliage has gone brown. This gives plenty of ventilation whilst not permitting any rain soaking them. Also up like that they are less likely to be vandalised by rodents. It seems that although rodents don't actually eat the onions they simply cannot resist buggering them up with a couple of nibbles!
JB.

I should have mentioned that we don't lay the onion directly on the ground. Have you an allotment in Ossett then?

Hi glallotments
Yes, I’ve an allotment in Ossett on what is probably a fairly unique site; just two 10 rod plots on the entire site. The onions are now duly spread out with foliage attached to dry. I must admit that I have never before still had so much greenery on my onions when I’ve lifted them. I’ve been leaving them in the ground waiting for the leaves to die down, but only about half a dozen of about 60 onions have done so. But having said that, they look like the best crop I’ve ever had. Strange old life, veg growing!

We're nearly neighbours then - our site is in Horbury!

Just make sure that your onions don't suffer the same fate as Catherine's products on her allotment recently when things got nicked just as they were ready for harvesting. If there's any risk of that you'd be better taking them home and drying them out elsewhere in a safe place, especially if they're the best crop you've ever had.

You're right Primrose. Ours are in the greenhouse at home in the garden.

I pull ours up, Fred, green or no green, and then put them into the unheated greenhouse to dry. The foliage soon goes limp and dries up and that's the time when I cut it off and put the onions, stalk end facing down, on the slats of the greenhouse benches until they are completely dry. Over winter they live in flat, open trays in the (mostly frost-free) garage, near the window.

Thanks for the further advice. I can confirm that the greenhouse where they're drying is at home, and (hopefully) less likely to be plundered.

I leave the foliage on until it dries, I hang mine in the garage to dry slowly with little sunlight but protected from frost and midday heat etc.