Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

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!

Vegmonkey’s Onions                            The Mrs’ Onions

Last year we just strung the onions up on some old wire shoe racks as can be seen from last years post here. This year we have probably 4 times as many onions from the same 1.2 metre square space. We’ve pulled out over 100 of varying sizes and shapes. After an initial worry that they were all going to bolt, it only turned out that about 6 did, so that wasn’t a problem. It was mostly the red ones, so next year i will ensure i buy heat treated Red Baron.

So to hang them this year i taught myself how to string them up correctly. I used this website linked from Jane Perrone’s blog as a guide as to how to do it. It really wasn’t as hard as i had expected! I was going to do a photo guide on how to do it, but got so carried away, they ended up strung!

I have another load still in the ground, so maybe i’ll do some sort of illustration when they come out and dry.

After tying a string myself, i showed the Mrs. how to do it…so she proceeded to do it much better than i did! Oh well! Mine are strung from the wooden door in the kitchen, and hers from a hook above the hallway for all to see!