When to harvest onions
Harvesting plays a primary role in the conservation of onions. When onions are harvested in a hurry or, conversely, too late, this equally negatively affects the further preservation of the crop. Often, the lunar calendar is used to find out when to harvest turnip onions or when to plant.
When to harvest onions
How to determine the ripeness of root crops
To make it easier to harvest the roots, you need to take care of this even at the planting stage. The beds should not be too close to each other. Throughout the entire time of fruit ripening, it is necessary to loosen the soil, prevent it from drying out and free it from weeds. Harvesting of onions usually falls in July - mid-August. It all depends on the condition of the upper husk and tops. The ground portion should be yellow and fall completely to the ground. The onions ripen for a total of approximately 68-83 days. If in doubt, it is necessary to make elementary mathematical calculations by adding the ripening period to the planting date.
When making calculations, it is also necessary to rely on weather conditions. If the summer is rainy and cool, you need to wait a little longer, if on the contrary - remove the roots early. Experienced people advise to pay more attention to external signs. Do not forget that cleaning should be done on a sunny, windy day. An important point is the harvesting and storage of onions, to which it is important to pay the necessary attention.
Collection features
The turnip should be dug in sunny weather, preferably on a windy day. Depending on what kind of soil is on the site, select the appropriate tool for cleaning. On heavy soils, it is advisable to use a shovel; for light soils, you can take a glanders. There is no need to rush, otherwise you can damage the roots or the bottom, which will significantly reduce the shelf life. You should start digging in the soil 5-6 cm further than the bed itself.
Almost all people make one mistake when harvesting: tapping the ground from root crops on a hard surface. This is not worth doing, because the vegetable, although it has a rather dense structure, is completely unstable to mechanical damage. Even a single blow can provoke decay, therefore, after pulling the bulb out of the garden, all the ground around it is removed by hand.
An important point is the weather forecast. If rains are predicted at the end of summer, you need to harvest a little earlier, if, on the contrary, sunny weather, you can not rush.
The harvesting time of the crop will also depend on the climatic conditions of the region. The lunar calendar recommends harvesting onions in the middle lane in mid-July. Summer of 2017 does not really indulge in warmth, so it is best to start cleaning around August 8th. In Siberia and the Urals, it is better to start harvesting in mid-August. It is also important to consider what kind of onion was planted.
You can plant onions for the winter.Seeds are placed in pre-prepared beds since autumn and left for the winter. People who have tried the method say that this method of planting gives excellent results and onions almost does not deteriorate during the entire storage period. However, this method can only be used in regions with a temperate climate, for example, in the Moscow region.
Preparatory work
Do not put root vegetables into the cellar immediately after harvesting. First you need to dry the onion. It is advisable to dry the root vegetable in the sun in the fresh air. However, weather conditions do not always make it possible to do this, so it is advisable to prepare for storage by spreading the onions in a well-ventilated area.
Drying times for the bulbs are approximately 12 days. The bow must be turned over periodically. Next comes the sorting for ripe and unripe fruits. Immediately you should use unripe fruits in everyday life, but fully ripe fruits can be sent to the attic for the whole winter after trimming the feathers. For storage in an apartment, you can not cut off the feathers, but make a braid out of them and decorate the kitchen with onion bundles.
After the bulbs are thoroughly dried, they should be prepared for wintering as follows:
- cut off the roots, leaving 1-1.5 cm;
- cut off the stems, leaving 7-10 cm;
- remove excess husk and damage.
When to hide and assembly features in rainy weather
An important point is to determine the readiness of the crop for harvesting in the cellar. The fruit can be harvested immediately after drying. You can find out that the onion is ready for winter storage by several signs:
- outer scales will be complete;
- if you lay out a slide from the onion and try to get one onion out of the middle, the hand will freely pass between the other fruits.
If the summer is rainy, you need to dry the crop twice. The second drying will take about 5 days, after which you can safely harvest the crop in the cellar for the winter. It often happens that the season of prolonged rains falls on the timing of harvesting: it is time to dig the turnip, and the weather is not conducive to this at all. In this case, the onion is pulled out of the damp earth. After digging, the roots should be washed, excess husks, tops and rhizomes should be removed, then it is folded in one row in a dry room and left for 21 days.
After a while, new scales will appear on the bow. Do not worry that the culture was collected in bad weather. If you dry the onions properly, they will keep just as well throughout the winter.
How to accelerate ripening
It often happens that the harvest time has already come, or the rainy season is on the nose, and the tops are green and even. In this case, they resort to small tricks that will help the bow:
- dig in the bulbs and raise them a little;
- cut the roots with the tip of a shovel;
- bare the bulbs, raking off the ground;
- do undermining the roots manually, thereby depriving them of contact with the nutrient medium.
It is important to remember that it is the root system that needs to be trimmed, but in no case mow the ground part. The wrong approach will lead to crop loss.
How to collect the testes?
Novice gardeners often ask when they can start collecting seeds. Harvesting of seeds is carried out when the first cracked bolls appear in the umbrellas. It is recommended to carry out the procedure in several stages, since the maturation of the umbrellas is uneven. The timing of harvesting seeds is about the same as the timing of harvesting. In dry weather, harvesting begins at the end of July, and with sufficient moisture, in mid-August. If the seeds are not yet ripe, and the first frost is on the nose, you should pull out the bulb with the root and put it in a warm place for full ripening.
It is best to use sharp scissors to cut the umbrellas. Picking by hand is not recommended, otherwise some of the seeds may spill out. It is necessary to leave a small tip of the arrow.The collected umbrellas are dried and left until autumn, then the seeds are separated from the husks and the resulting clean seed is stored in cloth bags or in a hermetically sealed glass container.
Conclusions, generalizations
The timing of harvesting your onion will depend on several factors: variety, climatic conditions of the region, soil structure, weather conditions, soil moisture. Experienced gardeners say right away that it is simply impossible to calculate theoretically when to harvest turnip onions. The main criterion by which the degree of ripening is determined is the tops: when it turns yellow and lies on the ground, it's time to prepare the crop for storage. On average, onion ripening takes 70-75 days from the moment of planting. Usually, onions are removed from the garden as early as mid-July. It is important to keep an eye on the weather forecasts as you need to harvest onions in dry weather. It is also recommended to stop watering 2 weeks before harvesting.
The storage of onions is closely related to proper harvesting. Harvesting root vegetables is not as easy as it sounds. It is necessary to take into account a lot of nuances and focus on visual data. In some cases, when the onion is already fully ripe, and the tops still have not fallen or turned yellow, you need to help it a little by eliminating the contact of the rhizome with the food source. In no case should the tops be cut off, otherwise root crops will become infected and they will begin to rot.
If the end of summer is rainy, but you need to remove the onions, then you can dig them out of the damp earth. The main thing in this case is to properly dry the roots, then the onions will be stored as well as those harvested according to all the rules. It will be even easier to collect bulbs from a wet bed: it is important to choose the right time, and then you will not lose with the harvest.