Without onions, it is difficult to imagine a full-fledged cooking, which is why they must be grown in the garden, eaten in season and stored until the next. True, it is not always possible to stock up onions so that they do not deteriorate and do not end ahead of schedule. It’s not the most tricky thing, but it definitely won’t hurt to study it.
Prepare
Onions growing on the site must definitely ripen. It takes 3 to 4 months (depending on the variety). Collect bulbs usually begin in August, closer to the middle of the month.
How to understand that the bulbs are ripe: their feathers should dry out, and the husks should become dense. After that, the crop is dug up, dried. If the weather is hot and dry, they are simply left in the garden for a week or a little less, turning the roots over from time to time. The sun, by the way, helps to deal with pathogens that can remain on the surface of the bulbs. If the weather is unlucky, it is rainy and damp, the onions are folded under a canopy on a shell net. You can simply place it in a well-ventilated area.
With cleaning and drying, everything seems to be clear, but this is only the first part of the preparatory work. When the onion feathers are completely dry, and the neck becomes thin, the onion itself is in a golden husk, you can cook it further. It is necessary to cut off the neck, leaving about 5 centimeters, and then remove the roots.
If the fruits are subsequently woven into braids, the feathers may not be trimmed.
The next stage is the selection of root crops. They need to be calibrated, to remove all damaged and deformed. But they do not have to be thrown away, they can be eaten right now or cut to add to pickles and marinades. But diseased onions are best removed immediately.
By the way, not all varieties of onions are suitable for long-term storage. Later cultures are more suitable in this sense. They are quietly stored until the end of spring. Yellow bulbs are also considered the best centenarians, but red and white bulbs are stored worse. White ones deteriorate quickly, it is almost impossible to prepare them for months of storage.
The necessary conditions
If the crop is not stored in the right conditions, it will die. More precisely, it will deteriorate ahead of time. The main criterion for choosing a storage location is dryness. Moisture destroys bulbs more than anything else. And because of moisture, the culture is sick.
In addition to dryness, onions require:
- ventilation;
- lack of a heat source nearby;
- the absence of an unfriendly neighborhood (you should not store onions next to potatoes, beets and carrots);
- darkness.
By the way, they store only onions peeled from the ground. It seems so obvious, but beginners may argue that, like carrots and beets, onions do not need to be peeled. But this will be the first step to the death of the crop.
There are a lot of ways to store onions, and there are also a lot of forms where it could be conveniently placed. Onions are stored in stockings and linen bags, in containers and paper boxes. That is, those who do not have a basement, cellar, dacha, those who are forced to store crops strictly at home, will also not be left without their convenient stock option.
Overview of ways
It should be noted that storage methods often have the character of family continuity. Whoever did it in the family continues: daughters repeat the experience of mothers and grandmothers, etc. And they may not even suspect that there are much more storage methods, and in each case they can be even more convenient.
In the refrigerator and freezer
The cold method is the storage of onions at zero or low temperature (-3 degrees). At such temperatures, rot does not threaten the crop, but the pulp of the fruit will not freeze, which is very convenient. And although many do not believe that the onion will not freeze, this has already been proven many times – the husk protects the pulp from freezing. In the refrigerator, you can achieve this temperature, so you can send onions there for the winter. But it seems that a glazed balcony is better suited for these purposes. If only because there are more places.
And you can also be critical of the refrigerator because the usual temperature there is on average +5 degrees. And for bulbs this is not the best option – moisture forms on the surface of the fruit, and for this culture, as already mentioned, it is a faithful companion of decay. Therefore, if you already store it, it is better in the freezer: from two months to six months, the crop can lie there. One problem is not enough space.
Nevertheless, onions are usually stored in the freezer in a different way: they are chopped in advance and packed in zip bags or containers. You can even make onion puree, which is then convenient to add to meatballs and many other dishes.
At room temperature
This method is called warm and is used, perhaps, more often than others. At home, the temperature often stays within plus 18-22 degrees. In this case, the humidity in the apartment should be 60-70%. Therefore, the fruits are placed on the mezzanine, for example, on an insulated loggia, and very often they are stored in containers under the bed.
Since a bow tied in braids is very decorative, and even a bow in pantyhose can look pretty, the owners decide to hang it in the kitchen, right on the walls. Yes, such a cozy rural environment is quite charming, but the heat from the heaters negatively affects the safety of the onions. It is likely that in such conditions he will not survive until spring.
Perhaps the need to store onions will be the motivation to finally unload the mezzanines and make them storage for onions. Very comfortable: both dark and dry, and out of sight.
On the balcony
If the balcony is not insulated, but glazed, onions are usually stored there. And there is enough space, and the temperature is normal, and you can ventilate. It is more convenient to do this in containers, on racks – to save space. In addition, storage looks more aesthetically pleasing. Just laying it on the floor is not the best option.
And it is also important that onions are not stored together with potatoes: although it is better not to be on the cold balcony anyway.
In the pantry
Again, if all the basic conditions and requirements are met, if it is dark, dry, there is enough space, the pantry is a convenient option. But only if the neighbors undesirable for this plant are not stored there. Crates and cardboard boxes are quite suitable for storage, paper bags or linen bags can also be used.
The shelf life of a standard onion is until the end of spring, and in the pantry it may well “survive” until this time.
In the basement and cellar
It is logical that you want to send a fresh crop exactly there, so as not to load the living space with onion heads. But if these rooms are damp and humid, they are definitely not suitable. If everything is tolerable, you can additionally process the walls and floor with lime or chalk. You can simply place lime in the corners along the walls – lime perfectly absorbs moisture. But this is under conditions that there is not so much moisture. If water often accumulates in the basement, it is definitely impossible to store onions there.
With crushed chalk, they do this: a pound of powder per 10 kg of onion, evenly process (powder) each fruit, without making the chalk layer very thick. During storage, the powder will absorb excess moisture, which will prevent the onion from getting sick.
And they often store canned onions in the basement and cellar: the method is not the most obvious, but worthy of attention. You can simply pickle it, and then it will become a spicy ingredient for a huge number of dishes.
Red onions, for example, can be perfectly preserved in balsamic vinegar, it is not even necessary to do this with a cut head, you can harvest it whole.
What to do if the onion rots in storage?
No one is happy if the onion is cut, and from the inside it has deteriorated, rotted. And the reasons for this may be different.
Why do onions rot?
- diseases – usually of fungal or bacterial origin, onions show signs of illness during storage;
- high humidity in the room – this does not need to be explained, the onion does not tolerate it;
- improper packaging – it will not be possible to store the bulbs for a long time in polyethylene, for example;
- excess nitrogen fertilizers – if even at the growth stage the plant was processed beyond measure, the harvest was probably fast and voluminous, but there may be problems with subsequent storage, and it is early decay that is the main one.
So that the onion does not begin to rot, it is necessary to prevent a possible pathology, not to create conditions for its development.
Rotting can be prevented in the following ways:
- even in the spring, during planting, the planting material is treated ahead of time with a manganese solution;
- use fertilizing moderately, choose the right compositions (onions, for example, love potash), this will strengthen the plant at the growth stage;
- carefully harvest – it can be damaged by hands, cut with a non-sterile tool, hence the disease and weakness of the fruit;
- high-quality drying – if the onion is not dried out, it will definitely begin to rot;
- drying and disinfection of the room where the crop will be stored, flowers often stand on the same balcony in summer and autumn, and, possibly, the soil in them is infected;
- organization of normal ventilation;
- periodic inspection of the bulbs to understand if they are in a normal state or there is a culling.
By the way, do not give up on modern inventions. For instance, in garden markets today it is not a problem to find special containers for storing onions. They can be stored on the balcony, in the pantry, even in the kitchen (if there is no other place). They look aesthetically pleasing, the bow is in order there, it is convenient to get it out, nothing falls out. In such containers there are holes for ventilation, in a word, all conditions are met.
You can store onions in wicker baskets, in metal ones – it also looks beautiful. In the baskets, due to their very design, there is a priori ventilation. Someone thinks that it is right to store onions in wooden boxes, and this is true. You can even break boxes into divisions to sort vegetables.
Any method is good, the main thing is to properly prepare the bulbs and observe the basic storage conditions.
