How to properly store onions at home
Oftentimes, harvesting is no easier than growing and harvesting. The storage of many products consists in adherence to a certain technology. So, for example, one of the most popular root crops in every home, onions, requires a special approach, otherwise the fruits will rot and mold. Many people, having harvested, think about how to store onions at home.
How to store onions at home
Categories of root crops
Onion varieties:
- small (sevok);
- turnip;
- large.
Sevok is a medium-sized fruit that grows in the first year after sowing. They are not eaten, but only harvested as planting material. The turnip is eaten, it is a gastronomic onion. Large root crops are used to obtain greenery, flowers - to obtain seeds.
Storage should be taken seriously even at the stage of acquiring planting material, whether it be seeds or whole bulbs, because it will be easier to save onions and green onions in winter if you know all the features of the varieties. Not every species is equally well preserved throughout the winter. For bookmarking, it is best to use late varieties with a pungent taste, but semi-sweet and sweet varieties require much more attention and a completely different technology. In addition to selecting a variety, you need to properly prepare for harvesting.
Preparing for harvesting
The correct harvesting technique is one of the factors that have a great influence on the entire storage process. It is not recommended to get carried away with nitrogen fertilizers. Nitrogen compounds build up in onions and spoil very quickly. Stop watering the plants about 30 days before harvesting.
Many people dig in onions and bend their feathers to the ground so that the fruits ripen sooner, but this is wrong. Feathers lay down on their own when the time comes, and then they are much better stored. By doing such actions, you can severely damage the bulb or stems, and then the decay process will begin very quickly.
Cleaning
In order for the storage of your onion to be the most productive, you need to properly remove and prepare root crops for wintering. Based on the characteristics of the onion variety, it is dug up 3-4 months after planting. Having dug up the fruits, they need to be thoroughly dried. Harvesting times will vary as well, depending on weather conditions. Usually, the onions begin to dig when the leaves are completely yellow and dried. Collect in dry weather. The most common mistake people make is harvesting improperly. Many people simply pull out the bulbs and tap the rest of the soil on a hard surface.
It is not recommended to tap the ground: the root crop is damaged, which significantly reduces the shelf life. It is best to carefully dig in with a shovel from the edge so as not to cut through the bottom, and slowly pull it out. The fruits must be laid out in a row for complete drying.In warm weather, the onions will dry out in 7-14 days, after which you can transfer the harvested crop to the garage or attic. Direct rays of the sun do an excellent job not only with excess moisture, but also destroy harmful bacteria. Knowledgeable people peel the bulbs before drying. The peeled root vegetable gradually renews the scales, which are the key to long-term storage. Then you can move on to cropping:
- dry feathers are cut off, but not at the root, but leaving 10 cm to prevent microorganisms from entering the neck of the fetus;
- cut the roots, leaving about 2 cm;
- an extra layer of husk is removed.
Technology
For a long shelf life, only the strongest bulbs are selected without any damage. Other fruits are used in the household for various harvesting, conservation. It is best to use a dry cellar for storing root crops, the air temperature in which is 0 ° C, however, not everyone has such a room. Before storing onions in the refrigerator, you need to equip a place in advance and pick up a container that will contain the product. For storage of onions are used:
- baskets;
- wooden or cardboard boxes;
- dense bags;
- nylon tights;
- nets for storing vegetables.
Vessels for storing onions should not be very high, the optimal height is 30 cm. It is worth paying special attention to ventilation. Medium-sized bags or nets should be selected. The maximum height of the contents of the net is also 30 cm.If a rich crop was harvested, then you can extend the storage of onions at home by distributing them in several medium-sized containers. If you put the entire crop in one container, the onions will rot faster.
Keeping roots right does not mean hiding them in the farthest corner. Experienced housewives know not only how to store onions in an apartment, but also how to decorate the interior with it. Without cutting the onion feathers, but braiding them into a braid and hanging them around the kitchen, you can not only save the harvest in the apartment, but also revive the atmosphere in the kitchen. Such products look original and clean the air in the apartment from microbes.
Conservation technology depending on categories
Much depends on where the harvest will lie: you need to create certain conditions for the fruits. Storage of onions consists in maintaining a constant temperature:
- in basements, a suitable temperature is in the region from 0 to 3 ° C with a relative humidity of 75-90%;
- for storage in an apartment, the temperature should vary from 10 to 23 ° C with a humidity not exceeding 75%, ideally 50%.
During storage, it is important to monitor the root crops and sort them every 2 weeks: sprouted bulbs should be removed immediately, and too wet should be dried again. It is unacceptable to store onions together with vegetables that need different storage conditions.
A representative of the Sevok variety can be stored in three ways: warm, cold and combined.
For the first method, the acceptable temperature is 18-25 ° C with a relative humidity of 55 to 75%. These conditions ensure that the onion will not rot and germinate. For the cold method, storage in the refrigerator is a characteristic feature. In autumn, onions are put in the lowest box in the refrigerator, if you need to keep the harvest in an apartment, or in an unheated basement in a private house with a temperature of -1-3 ° C. In the spring, the onions are removed, about 20-30 days before disembarkation and kept at a temperature of 30 ° C, then planted in the ground.
Usually, small onions are stored in wooden boxes with a volume of 8 to 14 kg, laying out the seed in stacks. The combined method is characterized by a combination of the first 2 methods; before the cold weather approaches, the warm method is used. In winter, the room should be cold, as in the cold method, if the volume is not so large, then the onions can be kept in the refrigerator, and with the onset of spring the temperature gradually increases to 30 ° C.After 5 days, the temperature is lowered to 20 ° C and maintained at this level until planting.
Harvesting green onions
Usually, greens are kept in the refrigerator, wrapped in plastic. So you can store it for no more than a week. Do not wash the greens, otherwise they will deteriorate very quickly. To extend the shelf life, chill the green onions in advance and put them in a bag: this way the onions will be better preserved and will not lose their properties for another month.
To preserve green leaves at home in winter, they are thoroughly washed, dried on a towel, finely chopped and dried on a board. It is important that during drying the product does not lie in direct sunlight, otherwise it will turn yellow and lose its useful qualities.
Turn the mixture over regularly during the drying process to prevent the onions from rotting. At the end of drying, you must put the herbs in a cloth bag and hide in a dry, well-ventilated place. To prevent bugs from settling in the greenery, it should be dried in the oven at least once every two weeks.
Important Tips
Even if all the recommendations have been taken into account, the fruits must be sorted out from time to time. In preparation for laying, damaged and infected roots may have been missed. It is also important to select fruits that are damp, they must be dried in the oven. To prevent dampness, you can use chalk powder at the rate of 200 g of powder per 10 kg of fruit. Chalk reduces moisture content in the air and prevents germination. If there is no chalk, you can use dry husks.
Most housewives try to keep different types of vegetables together. It is important to remember that root vegetables such as beets and potatoes need a high level of moisture - onions must be stored separately from them. For the same reason, it is not recommended to cover the container with onions very tightly, otherwise it will start to rot. To reduce humidity, it is best to arrange boxes with adsorbents in the room. This can be wood shavings or ash.
Even before planting, you need to take care of the safety of the future harvest. The shelf life largely depends on the variety. The yellow onion is able to lie the longest. Its scales contain a lot of dry substances and esters. Knowledgeable people use biological products to improve safety. Many of them can more than double the time frame.
The green onion is stored dry in dark rooms. Fresh, its maximum shelf life in the refrigerator is a month, and even better, plant the onion in a pot and install it on the windowsill, then you can enjoy the greens even all winter. Many, so that the onions do not germinate, coat the roots with lime paste or burn them, but after such events, the fruits become unsuitable for planting.
Generalization
To keep onions at home, you must strictly follow certain rules that allow you to maximize the time frame. Only large, healthy, not rotten fruits are used for bookmarking. The neck should be thin and the scales should be dense. Successful conservation depends on how the crop is harvested, where it is stored, and if certain conditions are met for each type of onion.
Before putting the peeled onions into boxes and storing them for the whole winter, they must be dried. When trimming the onion, it is necessary to leave at least 4 cm of the neck, ideally - 10. A prerequisite for successful preservation is the air permeability of the container. Throughout the winter, you need to sort out the fruits at least 3 times. Onions that have begun to deteriorate must be removed, and damp ones must be dried. If you decide to breed onions, storing them in winter is an important point: you do not need to make mistakes, this is the only way to please yourself with large and high-quality fruits.