Why Onions are one of the best crops to grow in your garden, (and how I'm preserving them)!

This post contains affiliate links. I will be compensated for purchases made through those links at no additional cost to you. We do not share your information with other sites. All views expressed are our own.  Thank you for your support!

     This was the first year that I have grown onions in my garden! As you know, I've regrown green onions on my windowsill, but that had been the extent of my onion growing until this year.  It has very much been a satisfying and learning experience!     
      My goal has been to have a garden that produces all year round so that I am always able to harvest something.  Onions have definitely been helping me to achieve that goal.  Click Read More to see how I've been growing, using and preserving my onions. 

     Last Fall, I planted onion seeds in my garden.  They came up as skinny, spindly, green shoots and it took them quite some time to grow larger.  One reason may have been that in the other end of the box I planted broccoli which grew very large plants that blocked the sun from my onions.  But, the onions continued growing and living and when the broccoli went to seed and I tore it out, they were getting the full sun once again.   
      At this point, I should tell you my initial mistakes when growing onions:

• I forgot to mark which kind I planted in which spots. 
• When they started to grow, I should have thinned them.  I am notoriously bad at thinning.  I feel bad for the little plants that I pull out.

     So, at harvest time, whatever onion I pulled out was a surprise, and for a long time, it was difficult to tell which were the green onions.   Also, crowded onions prevented good large bulbs.  But, in the long run, they tasted terrific anyway.

      In February, we held our Gardening Workshop where I was able to pick up a few onion sets.  I planted those and they took off very quickly! So, if you are impatient, sets are probably the way to go!

     While I was waiting for my onions to be ready to harvest, I would harvest some of the onion greens to use in my cooking, before ever harvesting the bulbs! I was careful not to remove to many leaves from any one bulb at a time so as not to stunt the growth of the bulb.  Those leaves gave a nice oniony flavor to many of our dinners! 

The leaves grow thick and tall, so one of two was enough to harvest for a recipe or garnish. But, you can see that my onions are overcrowded.

    For the last couple of weeks, I've been harvesting the onion bulbs gradually.  I've learned that when the tops of the onions start falling over and wilting, the onions are ready to harvest.  So, you stop watering them for a little while, and then pull them out of the ground.  I wash them off a bit and hang them to dry on my back patio.  I leave them out there for a few days to form an outer dry skin, then I bring them in the house and tie them together and hang them in the pantry until I need to use them. 
​

     My red onions actually bulbed the best and were so pretty.  I think my next crop will have many more red onions.  I love making Pickled Red Onions! 

A few of mine

These are not my onions, but just give you the idea of hanging them to dry.

     When I harvest the onions, there are all of those green parts that I had been using to cook with and I can't stand to let them to go to waste.  So, I wondered if I could dehydrate them and make my own onion powder.  Here is what I learned:

• Yes! You can dehydrate them and make your own onion powder!
• The greens by themselves are not very strong and oniony flavored after they are dehydrated.
• I took some of my smaller onion bulbs and dehydrated them as well to add a stronger onion flavor. 
• After dehydrating them, I ground them up as fine as I could and then sifted the powder from the leftover large chunks.  I realized that I now had onion flakes as well as onion powder! 

Dehydrating onions

powder

Flakes

     If you are going to use your onion powder and/or flakes right away, You can simply keep them in a jar in your cupboard.  If you make a large supply that needs to keep for awhile, I suggest using a ​​vacuum sealer to keep the moisture out.  You could even seal them up as little gifts! I like putting them in half pint jars.

     I've also read that if you want to help keep moisture out in the short term, you could put a few grains of rice in your jar.  I think I might make a little, tiny cheesecloth bag of rice to keep the rice separated from the onion.  Then, it would be easy to pull out and not get a hard kernel of rice mixed into your food. 

​The Bottom Line

     Now let me quickly break down why onions are so awesome to grow in your garden:

• They are used in all cuisines, from American Burgers, to Italian sauces to Mexican everything and everything in between.  They just add so much flavor to all foods. 
• They were easy to grow and are very resilient!
• I have grown and harvested them in my window and now I have grown and harvested them from my garden.  Even as they are still growing, the greens can be harvested, so there is always a form of food available to eat from your garden! 
• Onions last a long time hanging in a cool dry space.
• Onions can also be preserved by pickling them or dehydrating them.
• The entire plant is edible! 

     Finally, here is a bit of trivia.  Every time I pull an onion out of my garden, I think of the book/​movie, Holes!  Can anyone relate to this? 
     Have you grown onion in your garden?  How was your experience?  Any tips for me?  If you haven't grown them before, I suggest giving them a try.  They are a great crop! 
​

Other Recipes that Utilize Onions Heavily:

• German Käsespätzle
• Ecuadorian Encebollado
• Flammekueche (French Onion Pizza)