Well it’s how the Mrs does it anyway. I’m pretty crap at it if i’m honest, they end up sort of hanging off the string in no real semblance of order. I’m gonna write ‘we ‘ though cos i was there taking pictures! I’ve been meaning to post this for ages as there really isn’t a definitive guide online that i can find, so here it is!!! It’s a shame, they looked quite nice laid out on the wire rack.
We started with a piece of string that was about a metre and a half long and tied the ends together. We then hung it from the shed door so that we could easily tie the onions onto it.
The first one is the hardest. The neck needs to be wound in a figure of eight about 4 or 5 times, and then pushed down towards the bottom of the string. This will be the base of the string. Any surplus ends can be trimmed off when the string has been finished.
The second onion is wound in a figure of eight about 3 times, opposite the first one. This enables the onions to be evenly spaced around the string, rather than in one long line, and wil fit more on. I think it looks very ‘traditional’ like this, and looks great hanging off the kitchen door.
The third up to the last are the same. They need to be carefully wound round as shown below and pushed down towards the rest. Be careful not to leave any gaps as they will show up later.
I think we tied on about 25 - 30 onions onto the one string, which means they are now compact and easy to store…much better than bagging or tying them individually. The pic below show the finished onion string, tied before we trimmed all the rubbish and loose ends off, and after. I hope this has been useful, please leave a comment if it has…or even if it has not!
Tags: how to string onions, how to tie onions, make onion string, stringing onions, tying onions
September 14th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Ooh, this is very interesting (and the pictures are very useful!). If/when I manage to grow onions in a year or two, I’ll have to come back to this.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
The problem I have with onion strings (which may or may not have been tied like this - don’t know) is that when you start using them, they start falling off.
Lucy Corrander
PICTURES JUST PICTURES
September 14th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Yes, I agree that was very useful. Hopefully next year I will have enough onions to give it a try. Sadly I expect it won’t be quite up to your standard!
September 14th, 2008 at 10:58 am
It seems a shame to spoil the beautiful handiwork by using the onions!
September 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
wow, they look perfect. So much better than in a sack where the bottom ones become squashed and you have to keep checking they havent ‘gone off’.
September 14th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I just plait them neatly and it decends into chaos. But they stay on the string and I just cut them off with a knife as and when I need them. I was never neat, am a bit cack-handed an i can’t see it changing anytime soon. Mrs Vegmonkey is very skilled though! Nice work
September 15th, 2008 at 12:45 am
That string looks great, hopefully I will be able to do the same with my onions this year (if they get through the summer). This is the first year I have tried growing my own onions - so I’m not holding out much hope!
September 15th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Very cool. Even I could do that now I have seen you great pictures and instructions.
September 21st, 2008 at 10:57 am
That’s what I call a really USEFUL post!! Thank you very much indeed for sharing this; my own onion-stringing efforts have been haphazard at best, so it’s nice to see how it should be done. Another problem solved!
September 30th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Stringing onions is a lost art, I had no idea how to do it until I saw your post. I shall invest in good string and aim to have festoons and garlands of onions after next years harvest. Cheers!
October 4th, 2008 at 8:28 am
We’ve always wondered how to do that!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Perfect, everything i needed to know !!
Thanks x
October 11th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Cheers everyone. We did the pictures and the post as we couldn’t find anything decent on the web to help us. So we made one.
Would love to see your own attempts this year, or even next. Take some picks and post the link in comments!
Happy stringing!