Sunday, September 4, 2011

Walla Walla Onion Harvest

I'm very happy with my Walla Walla onion trial this year. The plants, ordered in February, received mid-March, and planted in early April, did very well for me.

According to the Dixondale day-length map, I'm in the middle of the intermediate-day section. I went with the long-day onions because most of those varieties have a longer storage time. The storage potential of the Walla Walla, at approximately one month, is the shortest of those I grew this year. Knowing this, I've been using them fresh out of the garden for the past couple of months. The tops were the first to fall over, so I harvested the rest of the Walla Walla onions a couple of weeks ago.

The Walla Walla were one-third of a long-day sampler bunch, supposed to do ok here if planted early enough. Despite pulling some for fresh use throughout the latter part of the summer, after trimming and curing I ended up with almost 14 pounds of Walla Walla onions. I've been using the smaller and thick-necked ones in daily cooking, and hung the rest in a net bag in the pantry for short-term storage. Even though they have a rather thin wrapper layer, they should keep until the tomatoes and tomatillos are ready to start canning sauce and salsa.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I am glad you like Walla Wallas - I live 3 hours north of the town the Onion is named after and of course they are big deal up there.

Just curious - if you have time for a question. Where can I find out how long onions store for?? I would love to re-evaluate the onions I plant based on that info. Would be nice to grow some that last longer than a month....

Sadge said...

The Dixondale Farm website is a good reference for storage potential of the various varieties.