gil
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post-harvest storage of onions/garlicI must be doing something wrong.
I dry them out (or think I do), and plait and hang them from shed rafters,
Then they go soft / rot / sprout / vanish inside their skins.
Wossup ?
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Slim
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they're away from the light and it's fairly dry?
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gil
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yes, in semi-dark and as dry as a stone-built outbuilding normally is, that doesn't suffer damp
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Sarah D
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Sounds to me as if they are not ripe enough when you lift them; wait until the stalks are dry and papery brown, no green at all, gently lift the onions and leave on the soil surface for a few days. If rain threatens, bring under cover, but make sure plenty of air circulation. Make sure there is no green at all showing in the stalks.
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gil
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It's generally rather wet here.
I wait till stalks go down (or longer).
What's the compromise between leaving them in the ground to rot, and lifting too early ???
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Slim
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I would dry them off under cover if you can, avoid the morning dews, etc...
mild temperatured dry area in the house somewhere? Where do you store your winter squash?
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Gervase
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If you can't dry them out of doors with a 'half-lift' you can stand them on dry sand for a few days indoors for the tops to go really papery and the roots to dry completely before plaiting them.
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TAVASCAROW
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I just stick them in trays in the polytunnel near the entrance & leave them there.
Never had any problem keeping.
Think the keeping qualities are as much to do with culture as storing conditions.
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JB
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Is there much ventilation in the shed?
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Behemoth
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I find drying garlic to be the hardest part of the business, dodging the rain,tripping over them in the hall etc. Chop all but six inches off the leaves, dry as best you can and try to store loose in onion sacks, if there's any green or damp in the stalks, in a plait, the rot will set in.
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cab
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| JB wrote: | | Is there much ventilation in the shed? |
And is the temperature more or less constant?
Personally, I've taken to plaiting onions and garlic while still greenish, hanging to dry in a hot rear porch, and when they're dry they last really well. I used to dry before plaiting, but I've come round to doing it the other way now.
Once they're dry they go in to the spare room; no heating usually on in there, even in winter, so its cool-ish, but importantly its also a reasonably constant temperature through winter.
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alice
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Last year's onions, the first I've grown up here just would not dry - the stems were still pretty much green and juicy when I finally gave up. I stored them on airy wooden slatted shelves in a stone outhouse, rather as you would apples, not touching and regularly picked over. I managed to nurse them through to March like that.
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cab
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| alice wrote: | | Last year's onions, the first I've grown up here just would not dry - the stems were still pretty much green and juicy when I finally gave up. I stored them on airy wooden slatted shelves in a stone outhouse, rather as you would apples, not touching and regularly picked over. I managed to nurse them through to March like that. |
You did well keeping them till March, considering.
Most people down in these parts struggled with alliums last year, with the dry Spring when they ought to have been bulking out followed by the monsoon when they should have been ripening.
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Slim
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Ah, here's a photo I took about a week ago of our garlic. We cure them on wire tables in the greenhouse (with shadecloth) for several weeks.
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ariana
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Wow! I'm quite new here so I don't know everyone yet. You obviously grow garlic on a rather larger scale than we do  (21 plants this year!) How much ground did that little lot occupy and how do you market it? What else do you grow?
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Behemoth
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| cpg03 wrote: | | Ah, here's a photo.... |
Coooool! 
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Slim
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| ariana wrote: | | Wow! I'm quite new here so I don't know everyone yet. You obviously grow garlic on a rather larger scale than we do (21 plants this year!) How much ground did that little lot occupy and how do you market it? |
Those were from our four beds of garlic, each about 500-600 feet long, and planted four across. We sell it, with our other produce, at our farm stand, two farmer's markets, and we will be including it in shares for a winter CSA that we're going to do for the first time this year.
| ariana wrote: | | What else do you grow? |
A better question is what don't we grow  
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