We just picked our crop of onions and not sure what is nest for us RE: storing them.
Last year we put them in old nylon stockings, knoting between each onion, stored in our partial basement & they went bad. our basement is cool in winter hot in summer and high humidity.
Everything I can find online says to store in a cool, low humidity location.
BUt nothing seems to fit that bill here....any suggestions?
Atlas shrugged 1-20-2009
“When injustice becomes law, then Rebellion becomes duty!”Thomas Jefferson–
Except For Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, WAR has Never Solved Anything.
Unfortunately, refrigerating them is about the only option for you folks down south (I assume). Ours usually mature in late August, whereupon, I cure them by laying them out on our deck (not in direct sun) for a week or so to toughen the skins. Then I clean them (removing the outer 1st or 1st couple of layers- the dirty ones, plus loose roots, etc) and either braid them (if the tops are strong enough- some years, usually when it's really wet, they mostly rot off), or put in mesh bags.
The sweeter the onion, the shorter the storage period. Our Walla Wallas (a Vidalia type for northern "long day" areas) are supposedly a "1 month" keeper. With refrigeration and one of those mats in the veggie keeper which are supposed to help extend storage life (and they seem to), we can usually keep them until Christmas.
Good storage varieties- I LOVE Copras- will store here, braided or in small (no more than 10#- larger bags tend to heat up in the center and start spoiling quicker) mesh bags, hung in the stairwell of our basement (stays around 60° in the hot months, gets down in the upper 40's, lower 50's in the winter) until May of the following year.
If yours start to soften or sprout, consider dehydrating them. You can freeze chopped onions, too, but it's tough to keep the odor confined! And they dehydrate SO well (useful in pretty much every dish except those which call for fresh onion slices), it's a shame to ever waste onions which aren't storing well.
Summerthyme
The way I do onions. First, you have to get the right onions. Some keep longer than others. I plant seeds because bulb planted onions mature in late July in my area. I want to pick them in the fall so that I can store them in the basement when it is starting to cool down.
hang em
plant two seasons and harvest late up into november / december
dry / dehydrate em
pickle em
put em in tomato sauces / other canned soups n stews etc
have a seperate freezer and store em in it.
braid an hang in attic / dry place
Around here I can mostly keep some in the ground except a few short months and can really get by just hanging or putting em in chicken wire bins in the root cellar like taters.
The perfect ones (no blemish or cut) I store in pantyhose like you do. the others are either dehydrated or canned into caramelized onions.
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