Onions are one of my favorite garden crops. Knowing when to harvest onions is a pretty simple process. This post and accompanying video will tell you all you need to know.

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Harvesting Onions

This is one of our favorite vegetables to grow. We love growing our own onions so much because they are one of the crops that we can grow 100% of our family’s needs! I love the fact that over the last 10 years or so we have only bought a couple of onions from the store!! If you would like to harvest more and bigger onions I would suggest reading my article about growing onion transplants instead of onion sets.

Harvesting onions isn’t very difficult but it is important to learn the ways to know when and how to harvest onions. After reading this article you will be ready to get those onions harvested at the right time.

In this Article…

• How to Harvest Onions?
• How do I know they are ready to harvest?
• How to Cure Onions?
• How to Store Onions?
• Long-Storing Onion Varieties

This week I filmed a 5 minute gardening video tip to help you know when to harvest your onions.  The video is below!

How to Harvest Onions?

Conventional sources will tell you that your onions are ready to harvest in late summer when the tops have fallen over. However, I think that once the tops have fallen over, wait at least 3 weeks before you dig those onions up.

This happens around early to mid-summer. I wait until most of the tops have fallen over and then I will stop watering for a week to 10 days before harvesting. This helps prevent too much moisture and protects them from rotting.

Even after your tops have fallen over your onion bulbs will continue to grow and put on size.   When those tops have fallen over and the onions reach their mature size, like all bulbs they will start to draw energy in from the leaves back into the bulb.  I feel like this process makes for a better-tasting and longer-lasting onion.

3 Ways to Know Onions are Ready to Harvest

There are 3 Ways that an onion plant will show you when it is ready to harvest. I wait for these signs to happen before I start digging my onions.

1. Onion Tops start to yellow
2. Onion Tops have withered significantly
3. Half of the leaves have withered

Once you have decided to harvest onions in your garden the next step is to dig them up!  Notice that I didn’t say “pull them up”.  That is because you need to use a shovel or digging fork to gently lift the onions from the soil.  Pulling them from the top could damage the bulbs and we don’t want that.

Once you have dug up your onions leave them there in the garden bed in the sun for a day or two to start drying. After 2 days you need to bring them into a protected area like a covered porch. Be sure you don’t let them get rained on.

Curing your onions

Once you have harvested your onions you need to let them cure for about 3 weeks.  To cure your onions just set them in a cool, dark, and airy place and let them dry!  

The key to getting a good cure is to be sure the onions are out of direct sunlight and that they can’t get wet!  We like to cure ours in our garage on a screen, but a garden shed or even a covered patio will also work.

Long-Storing Onion Varieties

If you want to have long-storing onions, grow pungent varieties instead of sweet onions. Some examples of other pungent varieties we like are below:

• Copra
• Patterson

I would suggest growing onion transplants instead of onions sets. We get our transplants from Dixondale Farms. You can also try starting your own onions by seed too.

If you would like a little more info on growing onions, here are a couple of other posts I’ve written:

Complete Onion Growing Guide

Curing and Storing Onions for 10 months or more