One of my favorite books is The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour. I love this book not only for it’s information, but for it’s inspiration. Reading it makes me feel that, eventually, we just might be able to have an actual homestead (beyond our 1/8 acre in the middle of the city) to call our own!
Most recently I pulled out this book in order to learn how to string up the onions we harvested a while back which have been curing in various places (the back porch, our garage, the pantry for an afternoon) over the past couple of weeks.
According to the book, once you’ve made sure they’ve dried/cured completely and that they all have long enough stalks to support them being tied together you simply
~Start by knotting four of them together (using their own stalks – I used string)
~Then add onions, one by one, to the original four, twisting the stalks around the string (I added a few at a time and then tied the string around the stalks).
~Once all the onions have been added, you’re supposed to braid the remaining stalks around the string, then simply hang ’em up (I forgot the braiding part and just tied a few knots before cutting the remaining stalks off).
I hung them up in the pantry with the garlic we got from our CSA a while back.
All in all, I’m happy with my little project. I am a little concerned about the fact that I cut off the remaining stalks instead of braiding them…not even sure why I did that…
Wait! Does that put my onions at a risk for infection/bacterial growth/mold and grossness???
I guess only time will tell…
Not sure I’ll grow plain old yellow onions again…they’re not very exciting and take so much time! I think I might try for something a little more interesting this fall…I’m open to suggestions if you have any 🙂
Funny factoid: When I initially weighed our onions (when they first came out of the ground) they came in at a whopping 8 pounds, however, now that they’ve cured, they only weigh in at 3 pounds! I’m guessing that’s the weight I should actually keep in the record books…
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