winter japense onions

[finney]

hello,
can anybody tell me if i can pull up winter japense onions now,coz somebody told me you have to wait till the green storks go brown which is about july time,do i really have to wait that long they have been in since august 2007,
they are swelling out the ground now.

Finney

[T-lady]

Hi Finney

They're best left until they start to fade (ie: when the stalks go brown / fall over) but that doesn't mean you can't use a few in the meantime if you're short of onions and have a decent crop to get at.

[Snadger]

You can use them whenever you like but if you want to try and store them for a short time you should allow the tops to keel over and dry out before lifting.
They don't store all that well anyway, up to Christmas maybe, so I tend to use mine as I need them from now on and to store my spring planted onions!

If you're short of space this also free's up another bit of land to grow something else on!

[rustylady]

They don't store at all well, so dig them and use them as you need onions.

[la cebolla grande]

I've been using mine all winter - plant the sets close and use every other one as a spring onion, the others have got quite big now, but we are using them as and when as fresh onions. I don'y bother to store winter onions. We are pretty near the end of all of them and the first are starting to bolt, so I guess the timing is about right!

LCG

[finney]

thanks all for your exellent advice

Finney