Allium cepa
Straw-yellow onion, storage onion: this is the ultimate long-keeping onion, the kind you braid into strings and keep throughout the winter in a pantry. Its fine, thoroughly dry golden skin is exactly what allows it to store for so long without sprouting or rotting.
Characteristics:
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Excellent storage: when properly dried, it keeps for up to 8 months in a dry, dark place.
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Full-bodied flavor: much more robust than sweet onions, it is perfect cooked and for everyday cooking.
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Garden ally: it notably keeps carrot flies away from nearby crops.
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Hardy and easy: it adapts to almost all soils, even poor and stony ones.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: warm and in full sun.
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Soil: light, loose, and above all well drained. It tolerates poor soils very well: the absolute rule is never to add fresh manure or nitrogen, which directly compromise bulb storage.
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Method: sow under cover in winter or early spring, or directly in place from February onward, in rows 25 cm apart, barely covering the seeds. See how to sow your seeds.
Care advice:
- Thin to 10 cm apart and hoe frequently. Tip: gently clear the soil away from around the bulbs toward the end of their growth so they can ripen in the sun, which helps them store better.
- Stop watering completely as soon as the bulbs begin to form.
Harvest advice:
- Harvest when the foliage falls over and turns yellow, in dry weather. Leave the bulbs to dry in the sun for a week, then braid them or store them in a cool, dry, dark place.
- Do not cut the foliage too short: it protects the neck and prevents rot.
Beneficial pairings:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its sulfur compounds disorient several pests, naturally reducing pressure on nearby crops.
- Its umbels, if allowed to flower, are among the most frequently visited flowers in the garden by bees and hoverflies.
Uses:
- The everyday onion: soups, sauces, stews, tarts, and preserves. Its strong flavor stands up well to long cooking.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Replant two or three attractive stored bulbs in spring: they will flower and produce seeds that same year. Harvest the umbels when the capsules open to reveal black seeds. Keep them isolated from other onion varieties to prevent cross-pollination. See how to save your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment whatsoever. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
The onion you braid and that feeds you all winter.
