The green kitchen 24_7: How I cure our onions.

I use an onion a day around here (at least) they are one of my favorite things to cook with, they are delicious raw or cooked and add flavor to so many meals. The health benefits of onions are astounding! With all that said, of course they are one of my favorite things to grow :). They are pretty easy to grow, you give them a little care and a couple months later, they give you a nice bunch of fresh onions to prepare for storage. We just harvested (mid June) an we will have these onions through December, even through February if cured and stored correctly. I buy about 5-6 onions a week so, that saves me a lot at the store for the next few months!

I know my onions are ready to harvest when half of them fall over, at this point I want to take the entire crop out. Your onions are very delicate and will bruise easily of you don't handle them properly. I like to take my small hand shovel, gently push it down in the soil, staying far away from where the bulb itself is. I slide the shovel under the onion a bit a push up gently. The onion will pop up an the soil around it will loosen, making it very easy to pull free without any harm. Now grab your onion out, lightly flick off any big clumps of soil and continue on with the rest. Don't scrap off the soil or anything, leave on what doesn't fall off.

Take your onions to a place outdoors that will keep them safe from the rain and sun. Keep them in this warm shady area for a few days. After a few days you can clean off a bit more of that soil. During This cleaning i like to trim the tops to about 12 inches and take off anything rotten or brown. Keep them in the warm shady spot for another 2 weeks. The curing process will take about a month total, during this time the layers of outer scale are going to seal together to close up the neck.

After those 2 weeks are up I fully manicure. Clip the tops to about 2 inches and trim the roots off. Take a damp cloth and wipe them down to get the dirt off. Bring them indoors and place in a single layer someplace they can continue to dry for another 2 weeks.

Now you've got fully cured onions! Trim off the rest of their tops and take them to a cool, dark place to store for future use. It's that easy, just a few steps and a little patience will give you a fabulous return. Your homegrown organic onions will not be giants like the ones at the store, they will be much smaller and generally more flavorful. Remember, the smaller the onion, the better. They are more nutrient dense when they are smaller and you are more likely to use the entire onion rather than only using half and having to toss the rest. Always use your entire onion or throw away the left over, they suck up bacteria and can get you pretty sick if you eat it (especially raw) after being cut and stored. Here's our first harvest this year, 100 onions: