Well the storm didn’t eventuate, not on the scale the boffins were suggesting. Well not here anyway. So, it would seem I battened down the hatches for no real reason. But it still wasn’t great weather for most of the week, and by the time the sun showed its face I was fully immersed in an indoor project and didn’t even look out the window to notice it.
But one thing I did get done before the so-called bad weather hit was I harvested the onions that had their tops flopped over. I never really grow quite enough onions for the whole year and so I try to grow a good supply of Pukekohe Longkeepers as they last months in storage. To try to reduce the gap between eating our own and buying them in, I grow early onions with the intention of having enough early ones to stop buying store bought onions sometime in November and pushing out needing to start eating the Longkeepers for as long as possible before the early ones start going soft as they don’t keep so well.
While it seems like a great plan in theory, in reality getting the balance can be quite tricky. My favourite early onions have been discontinued by my favourite supplier and so I needed to look elsewhere for a similar onion that will perform well and be ready earlier in the season. After much searching I settled on a Yellow Spanish Onion. All I could do was hope these would become my new favourites and behave in a similar way to my old favourites.
The second spanner in the works was this season my Longkeepers didn’t germinate as well as I would have liked and so between all the onions there were enough to fill the bed. However, with a view to storage in my 1 x 5m bed I like to have 3m of Longkeepers and 2m of early onions as that is as close as I have got to making the storage solution work out. This season I had 2m of Longkeepers and 3m of Spanish Yellow and it was these that flopped over – according to plan, in November.
Last season my onions were a little on the large side. I like to have meal sized onions, so I don’t end up with halves lingering in fridge stinking the place out. So, this season I decided to plant them closer together in an attempt to make them smaller as they compete for space, light, and nutrients. It was always going to be a risk of reducing the airflow and last year downy mildew was a problem. This season the mildew stayed away, and the onions didn’t seem to mind at all.
Not only were my onions on average bigger than last season, but there were more of them as I had squeezed 7 in a metre row where I would have normally put 6. So now I have loads of ginormous onions that will probably do 2 – 4 meals per onion and will stink out my fridge. But I suspect they won’t keep all that well as they don’t feel as dense as the Longkeepers.
Either we will need to eat a lot more onion than normal or I need to come up with a practical solution. I am thinking I may need to freeze or dehydrate them as well as use as many as I can fresh. This could work out well in the long run. Because if we eat as many as we can fresh, but preserve some in other ways as well, and then before they are showing signs of wanting to cross over to the bad side, switch to the Longkeepers and preserve the rest. Then when we run out of Longkeepers we can reach into the freezer for our onion needs and because they are so huge and there is a 7th more of them it should eek out the season and we may even manage the whole year without buying any. So, I guess my initial dismay of having so many large, short keeping onions will turn out to be a win after all.
Come again soon – Summer starts next week.
Sarah the Gardener : o)
Slice your onions ready to use then freeze them. I have never done it but have eaten them and they were great.
I haven’t needed to freeze them before but I did see someone freeze mountains of onions once before so I figure it is worth a shot. : o)
We use (bought) frozen sliced onion in cooking, you wouldn’t know the difference from fresh once they’re cooked. Don’t know if it would work for red onion though, as these are normally eaten fresh & raw.
That is so good to know. I was worried about risking the crop! I’ll just lightly pickle the red ones. : o)
Definitely yes to the easy pickling of red onion with a handy bit of vinegar ready to go – we’ve just started doing it and it’s fab 🙂
I find fresh red onion a bit too pungent and it stays with me all day so I always give them a bit of a soak first to take the edge off but I never thought to do the whole onion in a jar in the fridge. : o)
I sometimes have a half onion in the fridge, but I contain the pong by putting the cut side on the inside of a jar lid, and then screwing the jar down on top of it. Of course, you still need to find a timely use for Part 2.
That sounds like a good idea to contain the stink! I’ll have to try it. : o)
Summer starts next week . . . which is this week now? Our winter does not start until the 21st.
Here in NZ we tend to go by the calendar rather than the solstice as it suits our climatic conditions better. : o)
Well, I sort of figured that, but I did not bother to think what makes our winter start when it does; if it is a date on the calendar, or the solstice. I suppose it does not matter, because I am in California anyway. There is not much of a winter here.