walla walla onions

by Guy Cresap
(Western Washington)

Walla Walla Onions

We live outside of Seattle, wa. This year we planted Walla Walla sweet onions for the 1st time. We had a cool, wet spring and start to the summer so the garden was planted sort of late. My onions are huge and a few of them have flowers on top. Do I wait for the tops to die back before harvesting or do I need to harvest the ones that have flowered now?
Thank You
Guy C

Walla Walla Onion harvest

If some of your walla walla's are going to seed I imagine that is because you started from sets instead of seeds. Onions are a biannual meaning they go to seed on their second year and it is not uncommon for some onion sets to think it is their second year and to go to seed. For that reason I start my onions in the fall in flats in a green house and then transplant young onion starts in the spring.
So if you have some that are going to seed they won't be good to eat. When they are almost mature stop watering and wait until the tops on the rest of the onions fall over then leave them in the ground for a week or so to harden off. Harvest them and dry them on a rack and then cut off the tops and put them in a bag or better yet braid your onions and hang them. The braids are pretty and they keep good that way. We have too many onions for braiding so we just bag most of them and braid some for seed which we re plant in the spring as they seed their second year. We could just leave our seed onions in the ground but we like to cover crop and rotate our crops so they would be in the way. If you save them and replant them you can also pick the best keepers for seed.
Hope this answers your questions.
Happy Harvest we love walla walla's
Farmer Dave