It’s a shame when an onion crop that you put a lot of effort into growing ends up rotting. This happens when it is not properly prepared for storage and then stored in a room with unsuitable conditions. Let's look at how to store onions so that they don't rot.
What you will need:
- Scissors;
- mesh bag or thread.
The process of preparing bulbs, and choosing storage conditions for onions
An important condition for preserving the bulbs is their maturity. They need to be pulled out only if the stems are dry. Some varieties remain green for a very long time. If this is what you have, then pull out the bulbs when the stems have dried out at the tips or lay on the ground.
The onions are pulled out and laid out on a grid or soil directly on the beds. You need to dry it in the sun for about a week.
If the weather is damp, then the onions are brought into a shelter, for example, in a greenhouse or barn. It needs to be spread out with space between the bulbs to prevent rotting and the spread of mold. Drying in the shade can take up to 2 weeks. It is necessary to dry until the husks begin to fall off the bulbs.
Excess husks must be removed from dried bulbs.You should handle them carefully so as not to make dents, which could cause them to rot. After removing the husk, you need to cut off the roots and shorten the stem, leaving a tail of 5-7 cm.
Onions should be stored in a cool, dry, dark, well-ventilated place. This could be a storage room, garage or other unheated room. It is best preserved when hung in a bunch. Soft bulbs should never be stacked with hard ones. They do not last long, so they should be consumed as soon as possible.
It is optimal to bring the bulbs. The easiest way is to place them in a mesh bag. The net will need to be checked periodically to remove any bulbs that have become soft or have begun to rot.
If you don't have a net, you can tie the bulbs into a bunch like bunches of grapes.
To do this, take a thread 1 m long and tie its ends. The resulting ring is suspended. Then the tail of the onion is wrapped around it. Several turns are made. As a result, it should freeze.
Then the next onion is taken and its tail is wrapped on a thread in the same way. It goes down close to the previous one.
Thus, the whole bunch is collected. The thread is used as a base; there is no need to knit it into tails. The assembled bundle is suspended. In the future, the bulbs can be removed in a row, starting from the top, so that the lower ones do not come undone.
