Late August – time to harvest the onions.

Last year I bought some onion sets from a discount store which I planted in November, and some from a local nursery which I finally planted at the end of March (late because the weather was so awful in early Spring).   Whether it was the poor quality of the onions or the fact that the hens kept getting out and scratching in the onion bed, or the wet winter we had, I don’t know, but the onions I planted in March from the nursery were much bigger, despite the shorter growing season.

As soon as the onion tops fall over, it’s time to harvest the onions but you can, of course, eat them before that if you wish. To store them you need to tie string tightly around the neck of each onion so the damp in the stalk doesn’t seep into the onion bulb, then you can tie them up any way you want. Plaiting onions is quite fun and they look great hanging up alongside bunches of dried herbs.