Onions have been grown in gardens for centuries. To this day, there is a questionable custom in onion cultivation that is supposed to be beneficial for the harvest: twisting the onion greens one to two weeks before harvest.
Does twisting the onion greens promote ripeness?
Bending the green onion does not promote ripeness - it prevents nutrients from migrating from the green leaf into the onion and thereby affects the storage life. Instead of twisting, bulbs can be lifted slightly to help the foliage die back more quickly.
Onion cultivation and care
Onion cultivation is widespread and is also often practiced in the home garden. On the one hand, the cultivation of different onion varieties is like
- cooking onions,
- Shallots,
- Spring onions and
- Vegetable onions
a simple thing that even gardening beginners can quickly get to grips with. Onions are generally undemanding and thrive in any good garden soil. However, care must be taken to ensure that the onion plants get enough sun and water.
The ripening point
An onion is ready to harvest when its greens die off. For summer onions, this is the month of August. The onions are now preparing for the coming winter and storing all the nutrients in the onion. Inevitably the onion leaves receive less and less food and they turn yellow. After a few days the leaves are completely dead and fall over. Now the time for ripening has come.
Important measures before maturity
Before the ripening point occurs, care must be taken to ensure that no inflorescences form. Corresponding approaches are immediately cut out. If the flower is allowed to develop, the bulb is lost for domestic storage. However, if you want to sow onions from your own seeds, you will be happy about a flower and the ripe seeds dry.
So that the leaves die off more quickly, the bulbs can be lifted slightly using the digging fork (€139.00 on Amazon). The roots then no longer have any support in the ground and no longer draw water. The ripe onion dries more quickly and can be removed from the bed.
The Treading of the Leaves
The custom of trampling onion leaves when they are still in the juice is still widespread. Treading is intended to cause the onion to ripen more quickly.
However, scientific studies have proven the opposite. Treading over the leaves is an intervention in the final stage of the bulb's ripening process. On the one hand, it is not yet fully ripe, and on the other hand, valuable nutrients are prevented from migrating from the green leaves into the onion. The onion reaches a state of emergency ripeness when the leaves are crushed. As a result, the shelf life suffers.
