The Onion Harvest

The weather forecast is calling for the first significant rainfall in months for tomorrow evening. I decided it was time- and probably past time - to pull out my onion crop.

I planted the onions on April 14 so they have been in the ground for just short of seven months. The tops are finally starting to fall over on the huge "Red Bull" red storage onions. I was sure, even before weighing them, that these were the biggest "Red Bull" that I have ever grown. They are monster onions!

Here are the "Frontier" yellow storage onions before I pulled up the row. The tops fell over on these many, many weeks ago and have now completely dried up. I should have pulled them up long ago, but too many other "life" things got in the way. I am a bit concerned that many of the protective paper layers have already pealed off and that the "Frontiers" won't have a lot of skin to protect them in storage. Time will tell.

I pulled everything up and set them into large, empty flower pots. Boy did the shop start to smell like onions!

A pile of "Frontier".

And the colossal "Red Bull".

After I individually trimmed and cleaned up each onion, I set them into trays were they will be stored for the Winter. Here is this year's harvest.

I planted 14 "Frontier" yellow storage onions. My total harvest was 11 lbs. 3.7 oz. The largest onion was 1 lbs. 4 oz. and the average size was 12.8 oz. They were smaller then the "Prince" yellow storage that I grew last year. Those averaged out at 14.11 oz each. Just a bit bigger than this year's "Frontier".

I planted 10 "Red Bull" red storage onions. My total harvest was 16 lbs. 8.6 oz. The largest onion was 2 lbs. 0.9 oz. and the average size was 1 lbs. 10.4 oz. I was correct. This variety was huge this year. For comparison, last year the average size "Red Bull" onion was 10.24 oz. This year they were over a pound larger!

My total onion harvest for 2012 was 27 lbs. 12.3 oz.