Here in South Florida we grow common "Northern" veggies in our Winter months. Because of this, we need to use "short day" versions of these plants. "Short Day" comes from the fact that the number of daylight hours are LESS in the winter than the summer. Just the opposite, there are some plants that will only grow when the number of daylight hours in a days are longer and are called "Long Day".We had a fundraiser in the Fall and members ordered many short day onions. Personally, we ordered and planted "Red Creole" short day onions. This photo is of about 1/4 of our harvest that was rinsed off and now drying in the shade of our lanai.
When to harvest? When the stalks start to fall over, knock them all down. Harvest can start right away but they will keep a while in the garden. We chose to do a portion at a time since lack of space is our issue.
When pulling onions, there will be thin and thick necked onions. Thick necked onions will not dry and store well. These onions are brought indoors and used up right away. We enjoyed Philly Steak Sandwiches, French Onion soup, liver and onions, and froze extra fried onions for last minute burgers and meals. The next succession we will be drying onions in our dryer outdoors and tray freezing.
Onions can be tray frozen. Chop or dice onions and place bits a single layer on a parchment paper lined tray that will fit in your freezer. Parchment paper prevents the bits from adhering to the pan. Once frozen, place onion pieces in a freezer zip type bag and store in the freezer. Tray freezing makes it MUCH easier to remove a portion of the onions at a time. If you eliminate this, make sure to package up the onion bits in single-serving freezer zip bags.
Perfect temperature to store onions is 40º but most of us in South Florida never have those conditions anywhere but the refrigerator. Sweet onions will not store well. PUNGENT onions store much better.
Once our thin-necked PUNGENT onions are thoroughly dry, we will braid them so the bulbs do not touch and store inside during the hot and humid summer months. To be sure the onions are dry, they should have no "neck". The neck should be completely limp and dry; not juicy, green, or alive in any way. After braiding and hanging, store in your coolest, driest, ventilated area. Onions should be checked periodically to make sure none are decaying. If so, remove the problem onion(s) as not to affect the other onions. We store ours in our spare bedroom with air conditioning and with a ceiling fan running. It's far from 40º so we keep an eye on our onions.
