Harvesting Onions - any time you want

There are no secrets to harvesting onions. They're one of the vegetables that will allow you to harvest them just about any time you want.

That's right, from tiny green onions to large bulbs with dry outer skins, onions are ready to harvest when you are.

You can pull on the tops, slice off just under the bottom of the bulb for those growing high in the soil, or use a digging fork to loosen the ground around the onion before extracting it.

Take your pick of methods, but don't forget, the entire onion is edible. Knowing this might have you harvesting fewer onions since you'll have more to eat than you would if you simply focused on the bulb.

If you're like the typical American, you know onions to be a round vegetable with a paper like outer skin and a juicy pungent flesh on the inside with a crisp structure that shows growth in concentric rings.

But onions are much more than that. They consist not only of the bulb, but the entire green stalk above the bulb. As my friend Roy-Joe down in Texas tells me, "Eat it allllll!"

So, that means you don't have to wait until the onion is finished growing before you harvest because harvesting onions means you're going for the greens as much as your going for the bulb.

As far as I'm concerned, there is as much value in the greens as there is in the bulb. Don't let your limited experience with grocery store onions in a net bag limit your interest in onion tops. I mince them up and use them in scrambled eggs and just about any dish that might call for chives, scallions or onions.

Yes, you can eat it all.

Done with Harvesting Onions, back to Harvesting Vegetables