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My onions are huge this year and the foliage is still green and only just starting to flop over and die back a little. However my plot neighbours are starting to pull all theirs out as they say that with all this wet they will start to rot. This has got me thinking i should do the same.
But
Are they "ripe" enough? Mine don't seem to yet have much tough skin around them, won;t they go bad? And if I harvest them how can I dry them out? I live in a flat... Maybe in my cellar? however I feel that it's a little too cool and damp down there, it's a good place to store pumpkins!

What should I do? I could probably just keep an eye on the weather, today it's quite warm and dry...

A dutch light or frasme on the plot... will need a trestle to keep them off the floor too...

I'm lifting mine as soon as it stops raining! I'm away till 19th July and I think they would have rotted by then. I have a larder cupboard and I'm stringing them up in there in bunches of 5 or 6, removing the really soggy leaves first.

Ah yes good point - should I cut back the foliage to help the drying?

Not sure what you mean by a "dutch light or frame" chriscross?

Hi, Just harvest them as you need them. Leave the rest  to ripen where they are '
There are more onions lost through lifting  them while the stalks are still full of moisture. It's this what causes them to rot .. Cheers ..Jim

I dry mine outdoors...even in wet(ish) weather they will eventually dry.. ::) Although my onions are nowhere even near that stage yet. Usually I dry mine on bread delivery trays...one to keep the onions off from ground and then on top of that tower of trays with onions on...top of the last onion tray I place another empty one with big sheet of glass, plastic or iron to keep rain away. Beauty bit bread trays is that they have such a big holes in them and when stacked there is always couple of inches spare room between trays =good ventilation.

Antipodes...have you got shed on your plot?..you could make 'hammock' with chicken wire and hang it up from shed roof and lay onions to dry on top of that..if they are really 'soggy' onions..you can push the foliage through the holes  and have onion roots sticking up to 'air' preventing drying down foliage to going mouldy at the neck.

I don't usually cut back the foliage - just leave it to dry out, but we've had so much rain some of the outer leaves are turning to mush. Those are the ones I've removed. These are my autumn onions and I've been lifting and using them for over a month already as needed, however I 'm not sure how much longer they'll last in the ground.

The ones I planted in the spring (grown from seed) are still absolutely fine and I'm leaving them to grow and ripen.

Since you are in France what you need is a beret and a bicycle and then you plait them and string them up. ;D

Quote from: Digeroo on July 09, 2012, 17:19:34
Since you are in France what you need is a beret and a bicycle and then you plait them and string them up. ;D

LOL

MMM bit of conflicting advice there. Would it help if I pulled the soil back a bit? They are well buried in the soil currently. I haven't noticed myself any rot, the few I have pulled up recently for eating have been fine. They don't seem to have much of the papery skin though, I can see the white part of the onion in some places.

As they are so good this year I am in a dilemma. I wouldn't want to spoil them by being unnecessarily hasty...

Well..if they still look ok..leave them be and allow them to mature in their own time...but if/when you do choose to lift them up early, there is no need to wait them to develop their skins...as they dry out, some of the outer layers will 'paper up'.
And as being well buried..you can carefully scrape soil back to allow bit more 'air' around the bulb...did you plant them deep or have they got buried with mulch?

Quote from: goodlife on July 10, 2012, 09:50:50
Well..if they still look ok..leave them be and allow them to mature in their own time...but if/when you do choose to lift them up early, there is no need to wait them to develop their skins...as they dry out, some of the outer layers will 'paper up'.

Ah OK. In the past to be honest it has always been fine and dry when I harvest so I never paid much attention to how they were! I usually let them dry out naturally in the ground and pull them when the stem are pretty much dead.

Quote from: goodlife on July 10, 2012, 09:50:50
And as being well buried..you can carefully scrape soil back to allow bit more 'air' around the bulb...did you plant them deep or have they got buried with mulch?

No, they were deep planted. They haven't been mulched although any hoed weeds were left in place so there is a bit of organic matter on the ground around them.

I do have a shed, but it's a bit of a mess :( so not too much room to dry onions. Always a bit afraid of rodents too... However usually I leve them in there but only for a couple of days until they are dry enough, I think here I am looking at a much longer drying period. There is my cellar but I worry that it is not dry enough?

Cellar.. :-\...it might not be right envinronment..even if there is not light..but the air is the main issue. To dry onions you will need some air flow and some light would be good too.
If you were to dry them out in the open..does crops get nicked there?
Other year I dried my onions on the chicken wire 'hammock'..fastened one end of the wire on fence and other on old garden fork that was pushed deep into soil and when it rained I just pulled piece of tarpaulin over to keep wet away. I suppose you could do that from tree branches too..apple tree? Or perharps old table as 'roof' and keeping unions underneath on top of something, off ground to dry out ?
My plot is very secure so I can leave things 'laying around'...how about yours?

MMm secure, well, some people report having things nicked. As it also doesn't stop raining, think outdoors is excluded!!!!
Well, I will at least leave them this week, I folded them all over to hasten the dying off, but the  necks do seem still very green. At worst maybe I can try your hammock idea!!! or maybe find a way of stringing up the wooden crates....
Last year the onions were harvested mid July and I had 2 crates full, so I am guessing it will be the same this year... I missed out on echalotes but I have brown and red onions and they are fair sized...

I live in a flat aswell, I am planning to dry mine in my airing cupboard - I'll just take everything out of it for a couple of days/weeks (however long it takes) - do you have an airing cupboard?

:)

At the moment I'm leaving mine for at least another couple of weeks hoping they will start to fall over on their own accord. When they show some inclination to dry off then I shall pull them if necessary. This evening there is sunshine and a cold wind which hopefully will help. I shouldn't take up the whole crop unless you think they are beginning to rot. Then do what you can to get them dried as thoroughly as possible.Sun and wind are the things to pray for... ;)

No, no airing cupboard! have the pantry but it is already chockablock.

The beginning of the week was fairly dry but this morning, drizzle again :(  It's so bl**dy depressing...