Current question: can onions and other onions be stored in the cellar?

Onions grown in your own garden plot or bought for future use in the fall remain fresh for quite a long time. You can benefit from it until next summer.

To prevent the product from deteriorating, it needs to create suitable conditions: adjust the temperature and humidity, select the right “neighbors,” and disinfect the room.

Read the article about whether it is possible to store onions in a cellar or basement in winter and how to do it correctly.

Is a basement suitable?

You can store onions in the cellar. Only late-ripening varieties are harvested for wintering.

Bulbs with yellow husks and a pungent flavor are best stored. The dense shell and abundance of essential oils protect vegetables from spoilage. Red and white onions keep much worse.

You need to start taking care that the harvest does not spoil, even at the stage of harvesting.. You need to dig out the bulbs carefully, trying not to damage them.

Dents and cuts are entry points for mold spores and bacteria. Even one rotten onion can cause damage to most vegetables. You can find out why onions rot and deteriorate during storage. here.

Air temperature and humidity

Optimal storage temperature for onions -1…+3 degrees. Under such conditions, the metabolism inside the heads slows down, and the vegetables seem to go into hibernation.

Recommended air humidity - 60-75%. In this case, the room must be well ventilated.

Care must be taken to ensure that the temperature and humidity always remain at the same level. Their differences sharply reduce the shelf life of the product.

Preparation

You can’t just pour the harvested crop into the cellar. In order for it to survive the winter, you need to prepare not only the bulbs, but also the basement itself.

Preparing the vegetable

Before storing vegetables, they must be subjected to the following “tests”:

1. Dry the bulbs after digging them out of the ground. They are laid out in one layer, cutting off the roots to the very bottom.

   The feathers are cut off, leaving a length of 2 cm from the bulb, if you do not plan to store them in a braid. During drying, the vegetables are turned over several times.

2. Sort through the dried crop, removing all diseased, bruised or cut fruits.
3. Sort vegetables by size. Medium-sized bulbs are harvested for wintering. Large and small specimens should be used first.

The dried and sorted harvest can be lowered into the cellar.

Preparing the room

To prepare the cellar for winter, you need to do the following:

1. Ventilate the room by opening hatches and doors.
2. Place drawers and shelves in the sun. Under the influence of ultraviolet light, all microbes will die.
3. Replace rotten shelving.
4. Treat storage containers with formaldehyde solution. The boards can be burned with a blowtorch. This is done in order to get rid of mold and prevent its occurrence in the future.
5. Whiten the walls with quicklime. This allows you to reduce air humidity and provide additional disinfection of the room.

Winter storage methods

Onions can be stored in braids and wreaths. They are woven using dried feathers. For more reliable fixation, use straw or twine. The finished braids are hung from the ceiling to a horizontal crossbar.

This method is good because it significantly saves usable cellar space, and the bulbs themselves do not come into contact with the surface of the racks or with each other, so they rot less often. The optimal number of copies in one braid is 15 pieces.

Storing crops in nylon tights is no less popular. They are also hung on a pole. Tights can be replaced with linen bags.

Bulk onions are stored in wooden boxes or in wicker baskets, in lattice containers. In this case, there should be enough free space for air ventilation. It is convenient to use drawers with legs. They can be stacked on top of each other, but the layer of embankment in them should not be higher than 30 cm.

How to extend the deadline?

There are several ways to extend the shelf life of a crop:

• to prevent the germination of the bulbs, the bottom can be burned or treated with lime paste;
• Chalk-based powder will protect against the spread of rot - about 200 g will be needed for every 10 kg of vegetables;
• To prevent the bulbs from drying out, they can be mixed with crumbled husks - it will maintain a normal level of humidity in storage containers.

"Good" and "bad" neighbors

Onions can be stored in one container with garlic. These vegetables have the same environmental requirements and do not cause mutual spoilage.

Pumpkin is considered another “good” neighbor of onions.. It can be placed in close proximity to root crops.

Onions are not stored together with other vegetables and fruits, but this does not mean that a new cellar needs to be built for potatoes or beets. They just need to be placed as far from each other as possible, on different sides of the basement.

The exceptions are apples. They produce a gas called ethylene, which accelerates the ripening and rotting of bulbs and other vegetable crops.

Helpful information

To better store the onion harvest, The following tips should be taken into account:

1. From time to time, vegetables are inspected, removing rotten specimens.
2. If the cellar is too damp, you can place containers filled with sawdust, lime or wood shavings in the corners. They will absorb excess moisture.
3. Wounded bulbs do not need to be thrown away. The top husk is removed from them. After some time, the pulp will dry out and turn into a covering layer. These root vegetables can be stored in egg containers if size allows.
4. The room is regularly ventilated, at least once every 14 days. Onions are very demanding when it comes to quality ventilation.

IN this This section provides a lot of useful information about ways to store onions.

Conclusion

You can store onions in the cellar. The main requirements it places on the environment:

• air temperature is not higher than +3 degrees and not lower than -1 degree,
• humidity within 70%,
• high-quality ventilation and cleanliness of the room.

If these conditions are met, the harvest can be preserved until the onset of heat.