Onions in storage sprouting

Happy New Year fellow gardeners!

I thought I better check back in just in case y'all thought I had left town :) The builder I work for gave us time off, so I won't be back to my office computer until Jan 4th. I got soooo tired of dial up with AOL that I asked Santa (my daughter) to buy me whatever I needed to get high speed internet access.

Like a good Santa, she granted my wish, and I can now log on from home at what seems to be lightning speed.

I am so glad to see onion questions have been asked and answered in my absence. I still need to order my Candies & Leeks from Dixondale - I should do that tomorrow.

Congrats on your new high speed gift, Honeybee! I'd been on dial-up for 12 years where we are and only a few months ago could get high-speed. (It's still not "full speed" because of where we live but much faster than simple dial-up.) It is so much more pleasant to have a faster internet. Again, the perfect gift, ya done good!

Carminator, I braided garlic for a few years, selling some at the mkt, giving some as gifts. However, the folks that got them chose to use them as decorations, hanging them on the wall and not cook with them! Sheesh. I think I love garlic too much for that!

As for the dryer, DGer MaVie gifted me with a dryer like that. I haven't used it but when I mentioned to her it had been to wet this summer she pointed out that that is what they used in the Philippines all the time; I guess eventually the veggies/fruit/meats will dry in them. I made a solar dryer out of a cardboard box years ago though, while in Florida as well as here in NC, and it worked almost too good, had to keep watching it so things wouldn't burn or overly dry out. I think the hot air movement removed the humidity with that one. I'm like Twiggy on the other dryer, wondering if the humid atmosphere would allow the hanging one to work well. Guess I better give it a try this year. (

Shoe

We have two dehydraters which are used to make deer jerky which must still be refrigerated. I like the concept of using the dehydrators for onions and will give that a try after I have studied the process. Fortunately humidity here is rarely above 40% and ideal for drying fruits and vegatables from what I am hearing.

twiggybuds...quick question...what do you store your diced onnions in once dehydrated?

Horseshoe do you mind sharing how you made your solar dryer, I would love to make one. I've also seen people make a solar oven out of cardboxes, I keep telling my DH that we shoud make one as a fun project and also to save on electricity. I have been in parts of California before and the weather there is definetely more pleasant very similar to the weather in Spain not as humid as here in the Gulf Coast, that might be why the solar dryer works there better.

My DH used to be in construction before he joined the coast guard and one of his ideas was to get into the solar pannel business, I like the idea of using the sun to heat your water or to provide electricity, if you go to the south of Spain you'll see that a lot of houses have solar pannels intalled in the houses.

Honeybee congreatulations on you new gift, it definetely makes a ton of difference.

Thanks for the nice comments about the high speed connection. Yes, it certainly makes "surfing" more pleasant.

I ordered my candies this morning, but forgot to order the leeks! Dixondale had a "sampler" offer of red & white candies plus another onion suitable for my location (can't think of what's called) - I ordered two samples.

Honeybee, I wast just checking their website, it is really nice, by the way why is it that this is the only place where I've seen that talks about long, intermidiate and short day variety of onions, I just was looking through some of my catalogs and some of the onion varieties don't mention whether they are long, short or intermidiate onions, so I just assumed onions where onions and could just be planted almost anywhere. Accoring to this website you mention the cadies are intermediate onions so living in Mobile closer to Florida I was wondering if I could even plant this type or not.

Also are red burgundy onions short day onions?, just wondering since these are the ones I started from seed and was hoping to plant out.

"by the way why is it that this is the only place where I've seen that talks about long, intermidiate and short day variety of onions,"

More than likely, Carminator, it's because they are onion growers in the truest sense and have been for generations. Most seed companies are just sellers not growers, etc. I think it is terrible that many catalogs don't tell folks whether an onion they sell is suited to their area or not.

As for the cardboard solar dryer I made, picture a card board box with a glass window over the top of it. The sun shining thru the glass causes the box to heat up. However, to get airflow to pull the moisture out of what you are drying you need to cut two vents, one on the front (the side facing the sun) at the bottom, and one on the back at the top. The vents need to go nearly across the width of the box. What happens is as the sun heats up the air inside it causes a draft, pulling in air from the bottom, flowing it around your food/herbs, and exhausting it out the top vent (along with the moisture). You can easily make a tray using a wire rack or a piece of clean fencing to lay your foodstuff on.

I think if I ever make a more substantial one I'd use lightweight wood and make it of a size where I could take the racks out of our kitchen stove to fit in there, getting double duty out of them! I hope that description helps, if not, just holler!

Shoe
Oh yeah, Red Burgundy onion is a short day variety, perfect for your area!

Thank you so much Shoe, you are very right about seed companies not telling you whether or not seeds grow well in an area. About a month ago I purchased some alpine strawberry seeds I don't remember from where but there was nothing about the description that would tell me that it did not grow well in this area, well later on I found out by twiggy and other nice people here in Daves that this type of strawberries just are not suitable for our climate at all and that they will not produce well with our heat and humidity, I still have the seeds in the freezer and really don't know if I want to even try to grow them if they are just not going to perform well here. It is a shame and I think that they take advantage of brand new people that just don't know better.

Also thank you for the cardboard solar dryer, I think I am going to try it, it will definetely be a good thing to have when the harvest start popping.

c - Henry Fields lists their onions by day type. Never ordered from them though, so can't recommend or not...

Mraider I save jars for dried stuff. I especially like the plastic peanut butter and mayonaise ones. I think they offer good long term protection and are easy to shake out a few when needed. Onions and peppers dry to almost a brittle state and store in a cabinet or pantry. I also dry tomatoes which come out leathery and I keep those jars in the freezer. They might be fine in the pantry but I don't trust them since they obviously still have some moisture. None of these need any kind of preservative. I highly recommend drying for at least those items. I used to make jerky when the family was growing up but it was awfully hard to keep. We all liked it so much it disappeared as fast as I could make it.

I check many different sites to see if they agree on the day length of anything new. I'm growing something called Flat of Italy and to this day I don't really know for sure. I have found contradictions.

Every week I look at Dixondale's offerings and do the "should I or should I not". It's getting close to the deadline. I think bulbing onions are fascinating and I guess it's because they're still new for me.

twiggy - I have grown Flat of Italy for a couple of years. They are an intermediate day type to my knowledge. Nice tasting little onions. They are small, maybe 1" high by 2-3" diameter flat little guys... Not good for storage but sure good for eatin'!!

carmintor1 -

Thanks Kelly. That means I've got them spaced too far apart because I didn't know they were that small. I think you just tipped the scale in my decision re: Dixondale. I use a lot of onions and I better go right now and order some before they sell out. I think I'll try the well touted Candies and something else since there's a big price break on the second bunch. Maybe the sampler. I'll let you know.

Sounds like a plan twiggy. The FI are definitely little guys but you'll like the taste.

Thanks HoneyBee, I might just try them next year and see, this year I think I have enough onions that sprouted from my seeds, I calculate having at least 50 seedlings plus a couple more that I started in my raise beds.

I've got the short day and the intermediate day samplers coming. I told them to ship around the10th. Next year I'll go back to seeds again. If I can just get my timing right it's such a pleasure to grow them from scratch.

I've not had success growing onions from seed - are there any tricks I should use?

I had some great beginners luck last year. I got to reading about it and misunderstood so my timing was off this year. Most of my seeds had poor germination. The weather was crazy since summer didn't end until November and went straight to winter. So I'm ordering plants.

Last year I just sowed the seeds in 4" pots and kept them in the bright shade on the kitchen window sill. They germinated fine and I put them outside under a tree until they were planted out in October. They were still tiny but made nice sized onions by mid-June or so. I'll try it again next year in late August I think.

twiggybuds, thanks for the storage tip. Fortunately I have about 20 or more of these stored in my shed. One of my winter time duties is to clear out and organize that shed, and the wife suggested I might dispose of these. That little voice in my head said "morgan, you better not!". I am curious as to what you would use dried tomatoes for.

mraider, sorry to cut in but I was wondering, have you ever seen a jar in the store with dried tomatoes cured in olive oil, they are extremely pricey. Dried tomatoes you can either place them in jar and add olive oil and maybe a little bit of garlic cloves and or rosemary you can keep it in the fridge for storage, then you can add this into salads, homemade pizza, tomato sauces, etc... whenever you need a tomato, they are really good and have a strong tomato flavor. I have not dried any myself but I plant to, expecially with one type of tomato that twiggy sent me that is for drying. Not all tomatoes are good for drying I've though.

I have pretty decent luck growing onion from seed. I direct seed into the garden always. I've read that onion seed does not store well, so I usually buy fresh seed every year. I have sown older seed and definitely noticed my germination % was way down as compared to new seed. I think the trick is to know when to plant in your area if you grow from seed...

Kelly for what I've read onion seeds are usually good for 1 year, after that the germination rates get really poor. The funny thing is that I've bought my seed from Lowes this year, ferry morse I think and my germination rate was only about 50%, still enough I think, but I really hope the ones that I have survive the transplant shock, if not I'll have to buy some onion starts. I am not sure whether to try seed next year or not, if I see candy seeds this year here in lowes or walmart I might try to grow them from seed, I just hope I have a better germination rate.

I just split the Principe Borghese and Black Plum tomatoes into halves and dried them. Then into jars in the freezer. So far I just use them in soup and stew like fresh or canned ones. They plump up just fine and you can't tell the difference. I'm going to try dicing up some of the drier meaty paste types next year. They save a lot of space over the canned or frozen methods. I also have to worry about losing power for days if there's a hurricane. It is an absolute fact that if my freezer is packed with valuable seafood or very labor intensive garden stuff, it increases the chances of bad storms. They'd probably be fine if kept in a cool basement or something similar.

You can also make sauce and dry it like fruit leather. I did a few batches but haven't used it yet. My dehydrator couldn't keep up with all the production so most of my sauce just got frozen in ziplocks. You can season these things first but I kept mine plain because I prefer a universal product I can use for all recipes.

My mouth is already watering carmenator. Like twiggybuds, I have a storage problems insipite of three freezers and two friges. We have been trying to diversify or means of storage and dehydrating sounds like a good alternative. Although, like twiggybuds says, there's a limit to what you can accomplish with the time it takes to dehydrate. I did not know there were varieties of tomatoes better suited for dehydrating. Possibly because I wasn't looking for that particular form of storage. My wife is definetly going to love making dried tomatoes in olive oil, etc. We can most our tomates as sauces and tomato juice, and my wife gets pretty weary of that process. Consecutive fourteen hour days canning can wear anyone down. She get's a kick out of canning pickles. peppers, onions, and dill with her sister though, and this idea of dried tomatoes in a vinigaret will no doubt appeal. I will work on a variety of tomato for our short season for that purpose alone. The darker colored ones like the Black Plumb you suggested twiggbuds sounds appealing, but I'm basing that on appearance. The darker colored tomatoes, assuming they retain their color in drying, whould look more appealing in jars, would they not?

As for onions, we in the north country are subjected to the long day variety which is actually grown in the south to provide us with bulbs or starter sets. I have experimented with starting onions from seed and have had both success and failures. Our consensus is that purchasing the sets or starters makes more sense, and is a whole lot easier when you are planting several hundred plants. Each year I experiment with saving various types of seed for next season's crops, but I prefer to purchase new seed from a reputable source for most of my crops. I too have had problems with buying seed other than directly from a catalog inspite of the brand. Ususally the packages purchased at retail stores have fewer seeds per packet and something else we noticed last year was these stores did not place their seed on sale at the end of the year as in previous years. We asked the question "why", and the response was they were returning all unsold seed. To whom they would not say! Makes me wonder if that seed is old seed and the manufactures did not want to get a rap for selling poor quality seed!!! What do you think my friends???

mraider you are so right,I can at least talk about Lowes doing exactly what you said, they had a nice selection of seeds on stock and I was going to buy some from them, to my surprise they took all their seeds out and when I asked what happened they just told me they were sending them back to their original seed manufacturers, kind of makes you question what they do with those seeds.

I really have not dried any tomatoes myself but I got the idea from twiggy and also the oil pack method is very common way of preserving them as well, the only thing is once you make a couple of jars of oil packed maters keep them in the fridge, they don't keep forever a couple of weeks or so. There is one tomato I grew last year that I am sure is very good dried since it had fairly thick walls the name is Jaunce Flamme, nice little tomato.

Can I jump in here. I didn't read thoroughly so someone may have mentioned this already. I found Walla-Walla got soft and mushy too as well as turnign soft when I left them in the gorund just 5 days longer than I guess I should have. One of my favorite onions is Ailsa Craig (sp?) I was looking for an onion called "Kelsey" that I saw grown in Scotland when I lived there and when I got back to the states I was told the closest to Kelsey would be Ailsa Craig. They were wonderful, huge and yummy, and they stored pretty well, not months but a good 6 weeks. I found them in Territorial seed.

I have never grown leeks but really want to so I may try them this year. I would also love to grow pearl onions, anyone grow them?

carmenator, its not just Lowes, but every retail outlet here has suddenly started this practice of returning unpurchased seed packets. I for one would like to know what the reason is. I would think someone here in DG would have an answer. There should be a good forum to pose the question!

I was in Costco yesterday and I did find a jar of dried tomatoes packed in oil. I am assuming we have been talking about cold packing and refrigerating immediately, however these must have been pressure packed. There should be a procedure for canning these somewhere.

I am sure there is a canning one as well I just don't know it, all I know is that these little tomatoes tend to be on the pricey side.

One of the representatives of Lowes told me they would bring the seeds back perhaps after Christmas but for sure when spring comes, most people don't like to plant things when it is cold and nasty out. Some of my neighbors and friends act surprised when I tell them that I am growing lettuces, broccoli and other winter hardy veggies they just can't believe that things can grow in this weather.

On another note, I was in Lowes before Christmas looking at their veggie plants from Bonnie's and there was a really bad and beaten up little spearmint plant, almost dead if you ask me, when I asked the lady whether I could buy that little plant on a discount she told me that Bonnie takes all those plants back and they could not sell them at a discount, so there lays the question again what in the world would bonnie's company want their little beatten up little plant back and why would they not just sell it for a little profit.

I think I am going to post the question in the veggie forum see if anybody works at a retail store know the reason of this, I would really like to know.

This message was edited Jan 3, 2010 9:19 AM

carminator1 - I purchased a bunch of mint at the supermarket, placed it it water on my kitchen windowsill and waited until roots formed. I didn't get many, but with mint, a few is enough. I'm hoping it will survive the winter - heck, I hope I survive the winter! Gosh, it's cold out there!

Yes I just went out to my routine walk with my kids and we had to cut it short, it was toooo cooooold! My ears are still hurting. I am covering all my plants at night because of the cold but I am wondering whether I have to cover them in the daytime as well.

Carmin I haven't covered anything. I forgot to look at the lettuce... It can get a little tip burned sometimes but it doesn't really hurt it. I think last night was our coldest so far and all is well.

The plants need all the sun they can get, especially with all the cloudy and rainy days we've had to put up with. I know it's terrible for us to endure but I think all these cole crops are growing well in the northern parts of the state and they get far colder than we do.

I've got too much to worry about trying to cover so Mother Nature will just do her thing and I'll live with it. So far so good. I've still got 3 1/2" pots of onions, herbs, cabbage and broccoli happy as can be outside by the back door.

Twiggy I understand, see I only have 2 raise beds to worry about now but if I had the quantity you have I would do the same just let mother nature do her thing, the 3rd raise bed is already up and ready to plant so very soon I'll be transplanting my onions, I really hope they make the transition, if not I will just have to order some just like you did.

Boy I know I am suppose to start small but I am having a hard time choosing what to plant with the litltle space that I have, and there are some many other really cool veggies I would love to try as well and buy seeds for but I keep telling myself where in the world am I going to fit this in?

I'm hoping my carrots are okay - I have to make some turkey soup! I hate to go buy some. The cole crops are looking very sorry for themselves, but they have looked that way before when it freezes. Once the sun comes up, they perk right up!

I used my last onion over the holidays :( Will have to buy a bag during my next trip to the supermarket. - I still have some shallots left.

I just looked at the week's forecast and have decided I need a pill or alcohol or something to knock me out for the duration. I hope the weather liars miss the mark again....puleeez. I'm fixing to have to put on several sweaters and a coat so I can bring in my two small citrus trees and the seedlings I procrastinated planting. Might be all that's left by the weekend. It might not break any daily records but I bet it will for any given week. This is devastating to us that aren't used to it or prepared for it.

Honeybee, sorry to hear about your last onion, I am sure it wont be easy to buy the less quality ones in the stores, I have heard of people using shallots whenever the recipe asks for onions as well, in Europe they even use leeks instead of onions for recipes when they run out of onions.

Boy it is cold today, my red russian kale was a little droopy but I am sure it is because of the weather.

Twiggy at least we don't have to endure the snow and we still get to plant things out, but yes this weather I am not used to anymore.

twiggybuds, I just saw your forecast. Yikes! Ya'll are gonna have mighty low LOW Temps down your way. Hope your water pipes are well-wrapped and you have plenty of gas, firewood, fuel oil/whatever you heat with. This must be a record down your way. And yes, probably should pick up some "anti-freeze" for yourself, too!

carminator, I imagine you are getting this Canadian weather, too. I feel for ya! When I had thinner blood and living further south it was freezing to me when it hit 60º! I can't imagine what ya'll feel like when it gets in the 20's and teens.

Shoe

After Shoe's comment I had to go look at your forecast! Yikes is right! My parents live in northern Maine and they are not even going to get as cold as y'all the next couple of days. Stay warm for sure!

Kelly, Shoe I can't believe it we are going to be colder than Maine, boy I really hope my plants survive the cold spell. I have never been so cold here in the south, maybe I should move to Maine this weekend and enjoy some nice lobster.

lol - then get out before next week when the highs will be in the single digits!