Onions cause Headaches!

Onions Cause Headaches is the Headlines at Kirup Valley Farms.

Just recently we were ready to plant out 3000 of our torpedo onions when an email came from our seedling supplier saying that we had to bring more seed in to replace the dead ones. Well I thought that weird that 3000+ seedlings were dead.

In the mean time I thought I was going crazy in the head from Onionitus a rare whooping cough of onions. In reality I had the Whooping Cough and not the onions. I was looking at some of the rows and thinking we had some weird onion dieback disease. I was wrong. I could not have done anything that drastic to kill off over 3000 of our white Barletta seedlings. Yet they were dieing and I could not do anything about that. In blotchy areas the same thing was happening with our Torpedo onions. I checked on our gold grape tomato seedlings that were nicely in the ground and almost all of them were either dead or very stunted. I brought this up with our seedling people and eventually heard back from them . I went in for a meeting and verified that all the seedlings from that delivery date where affected. Here "I " thought that I was losing my mind and ready for the looney bin.


Since than we have had issues with germination rates and so our seed supplier kindly express mailed us 27,000 more seeds to sow out. Hopefully that will take up the slack of lost seedlings and such. Our leeks are looking well so far and the 1000 Brown and 1000 red onions are growing exceptionally well.

Since I wrote the post about planting our leeks, onions, torpedos and barlettas, I’ve had a number of emails from people asking about onion harvesting and storage.
The first thing I have to tell them is that in many ways it’s too late to start thinking about harvesting and storage now as many of the decisions have to be made before the crops go in.
So, I’ll wind the clock back to the start of the process and work my way through that before detailing the final means of storage.
The first decision made awhile ago was to calculate how many onions you want to store and for how long.
In our case, we need at least 10 month’s worth of onions. We use about 10 onions a week, which means aiming to have 450 edible onions in storage.
We then have to allow for spoiling – a noticeable proportion will have to be removed early on as examples with unseen rot or damage come to light, then a small portion are removed over the following six to eight months, and finally about one in- four go off in the final couple of months.
It means allowing an extra 20-30% for waste or rotting, to give about 600 onions.
But to harvest 600 onions, you also have to allow for seeds that fail to germinate, seedlings that fail to grow, pests, disease, wind damage, lack of rain (or too much), etc...
In our location and conditions, that means allowing an extra 40% for wastage. That means planting at least 850 - 1000 onions, which is a considerable amount of space and along with a big amount of work. Both of which have except my back aches when thinking about the work part.

The same calculation applies for our garlic and torpedo onions but with different variables.
In the case of garlic, there’s no point in trying to meet our year-round need unless I change our plans and plant several thousand cloves.

Torpedo onions on the other hand, have proved extremely reliable and free of disease for the third year in a row.
Having decided to grow 2000 onions, the next consideration is the varieties.
The best-keeping onions are late maturing onions with thin necks, transplanted from seedlings.
Onions grown from seed have to be sown thickly into trays in August, have their tops clipped to about three inches in late September then be set out in rows in October. This gives the onions plenty of time to grow, develop and mature through the long days of summer.
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Thus far, the plan for harvesting and storing onions is to plant at least 2000 with the majority grown from seedlings and an emphasis on varieties that store well.

The key things to remember with onions are that too little water will result in a much stronger flavour, they must be kept free of weeds and they need the benefit of those long summer days so they must be planted out as soon as possible. We are growing all our onions under black plastic mulch.
Having successfully grown the onions, we now come to the part that I’ve been asked about – harvesting. The usual advice is to wait until a third to a half of the onion stalks have fallen over naturally, and then carefully knock down the remaining tops with the back of a rake.
You’re then supposed to wait another week or so while the onions dry in the ground before lifting them and allowing them to dry in the sun for three days to a week.
But that pre-supposes warm, dry weather. In our case, once about a quarter of any given variety of onion has fallen over, we regard them as ripe for lifting and keep watch on the weather.
As soon as we get a clear, sunny spell with little or no clouds in sight, we lift the onions and lay them out on plastic bread racks we got from a local friend.
The combination of heat from the roof, plus the direct sun gets the drying process off to a good start.

We keep the doors open during the day to ensure good airflow and let the onions cure for at least a three weeks – longer if there’s any green or moisture in the necks. The stalks are cut off to one-inch stubs after the first week.
Once the onions have cured, we put them in net bags and hang them up from the rafters in the shed. The good airflow keeps them cool and dry over the coming months.
Onions intended for immediate eating - our purple torpedos and barlettas- have their stalks cut slightly longer and are bundled into packs of four. These go to the wholesale markets or to the farmers markets we attend. They are popular sellers.
If the onions start to sprout, they’re not wasted as the green tops make a delicious addition to soups, salads and stir-fries in later winter and early spring. Even our chooks like them.
And when we’ve lifted the very last onions of the season in early autumn, it’s time to start planting garlic for the following year and to plan the next season’s harvest of onions .

On a brighter note we have finished planting out thousands of watermelon seeds along with thousands of Rock melon seeds too. Some of you know them as Rockies or Cantaloupes.

We have several rows of white Lumina "Ghost" pumpkins which we liked last season as they had a really nice eating quality to them. Also planted were two long rows of Gem Squash ( a South African delicacy) and two rows of JapPumpkins aka Kabocha Pumpkin. Still left to plant are 1000 gold grape tomato's, a few thousand yellow butter beans and a few thousand of purple bush beans.

Ok I am tired of thinking in thousands. Wait till the time comes to pick all these "thousands"
Another headache yet to come.


Until next time,

take care