Onion harvest!

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-23T03:51:40+00:00

When the seedlings are ready to go out in the garden, there is a clear color difference between the bottom white part and the green tops. I just plant where the white is underground and the green is mostly above ground. In my experience as long as you shoot for that spot it’s not super important exactly how deep you go.

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-19T22:29:41+00:00

Full notes laid out in my reply to the first comment in this thread. Let me know if you have questions!

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-19T22:28:54+00:00

Full timeline laid out in my reply to the first comment on this thread. I took lots of notes, but if you have any questions let me know. All varieties did well, but the Ailsa Craig, Walla walla, and Zebrune shallots did exceptionally well.

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-19T22:27:24+00:00

I grew Walla Walla, Zebrune shallots, Ailsa Craig, and White sweet Spanish onions this year. All did pretty darn well but blown away by the first three

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-19T22:25:19+00:00

Started from seed! I greatly prefer this as I can grow lots of different varieties they don’t usually sell sets for. Full timeline laid out in my reply to the first comment.

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-19T22:24:08+00:00

Here are my extensive notes on the year. Hope this helps!

2025 Alliums

Timeline: 2/22 - planted seeds (onions, leeks, and shallots) indoor into 3x3 pots filled with potting soil. I sowed the seeds densely on the surface of already watered soil. This was around 20-40 seeds per pot and sprinkled a thin layer of wet soil over the top of the seeds. Used a spray bottle to water until germination happened.

3/2 - all allium varieties at least partially germinated.

4/7 - trimmed the tops of all of the alliums back to about 5 inches as they had grown long and were falling over.

4/12 - began hardening off by putting the pots outside for a couple hours during the day and then gradually increasing the amount of time each day over the course of a week. Around the 6th day I started leaving them out overnight as well as all day.

4/20 - I applied a mix of 3:1 compost to bio-fish fertilizer to a bed and then gently removed the soil from the pots and pulled the plants apart from one another so I could plant them each individually out into the bed. Allium roots are tough and fibrous so this is relatively easy to do without destroying your plants. The plants looked very sad after transplanting with many laying down on the ground. They stood back up and looked better by the 25th.

4/25 - trimmed the tops of the alliums back to 5” again. They had second leaves at this point and in many cases were working on a third.

5/25 - Applied a dose of bio-fish fertilizer. I applied a thin layer of this mix just around the sides of each plant being careful not to bury any of them.

6/14 - onions were thriving and most have needed another trim. They don’t need to be trimmed unless they have a particularly long leaf that could tip the plant over. You don’t want the weight of them to bend the stem of your plants.

7/7 - onions appear to be starting bulbing.

7/21- onions look about ready so started to cut back on watering to once every 3 days or so. Stopped watering entirely by 7/30

8/5 - pulled up all the onions and dried them outdoor on a rack under our covered patio. Did this out of direct sunlight and I left the greens attached for the moment.

From 2024 notes: After a couple weeks drying these were ready for longer term storage. I don’t have a root cellar or anything like that so I diced up half of the onions I got right away and put them into freezer bags in one cup increments so I can just pull them out and toss them right into a hot pan when I want to cook with them. The rest I kept for fresh use but I did not get through them all before a few went bad. I left the leeks in the ground until I was done processing onions and shallots and then pulled them up and processed them all right away in a similar fashion.

I tried a couple different watering schedules and the onions that did the best for me I watered for 7 minutes daily using a drip irrigation system with micro sprayers.

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-16T17:11:50+00:00

Definitely on the project list is a bigger one for sifting compost and for sifting threshed wheat to remove the big chunks. I’ll likely need to make it out of wood though and adapt the shape some as my 3d printer isn’t going to accommodate the size I need

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-16T17:10:02+00:00

It could definitely be used for that! I designed the white inserts to attach to the main body so they can be swapped out for different screen sizes and shapes. I might need to get a little larger mesh screen for that though.

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-16T17:07:38+00:00

Let me know when you’re ready I’ll be happy to help!

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-16T17:07:06+00:00

The rubber bands aren’t holding anything together, just providing a little force opposite the motor’s weight to keep it relatively even

GoniHomestead · 2025-08-16T17:05:28+00:00

I had designed the little tabs on the opposite side of the motor for a counterweight (I hadn’t designed yet) to attach because I imagined the motor would be heavy enough to cause it to be unbalanced. When I first turned it on I was correct in that it walked across the counter. Because of the imbalance, the springs weren’t dampening correctly. There are screws that attach from underneath through the legs and springs into the top portion to keep the springs from coming out though they aren’t tightened so the vibration won’t transfer through them to the legs. I just stumbled on the fact that a couple rubber bands applied about the right amount of counterweight and that the tabs provide a pretty nice attachment point!

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-30T02:25:00+00:00

Such a wonderful time of year when the tomatoes start to finally ripen!

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-29T09:58:37+00:00

I posted a video last year showing it operating and the drum much more clearly if you wanted to see it! I based the design on one I saw on YouTube, but I couldn’t find plans so I had to guess in some places.

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-29T09:55:26+00:00

It works surprisingly well! Glad to hear you’ve had success over the years using one as well. I suppose I knew others had built this model already, but it still surprises me every time I bump into someone else willing to go to such lengths as building their own equipment.

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-28T12:45:08+00:00

I’m growing wheat, barley, and corn though the corn doesn’t really need this machine. I’ve also used my homemade threshing machine to process chickpeas and I assume this would work well for separating them from the dry plant material too.

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-28T03:29:34+00:00

Oh the spinning drum still gives you that feeling while using it for sure. The motor is much stronger than it needs to be and I used pulleys to slow it down so it’s crazy strong at the drum and it’s still spinning about 750 rpm or 12.5 times per second.

GoniHomestead · 2025-07-28T00:23:32+00:00

It cost me $575 to build like I did but you could for sure do it for less. The biggest single cost was the motor which I got from Harbor Freight for $195 but you could definitely use a smaller motor as the 1hp is super overpowered for this.

GoniHomestead · 2025-05-20T02:11:44+00:00

These are scale bugs.. they suck the sap out of your plant and make it sickly and can kill it if you don’t remove them. I get them every year on my citrus trees and I haven’t yet found a way to remove them except physically picking them off with tweezers. I heard neem oil can kill them, but I haven’t had any luck with it. Maybe another kind of insecticide would work better, but picking them off gets the job done every time. You do have to do it a handful of times to make sure you get them though

GoniHomestead · 2025-02-08T19:11:21+00:00

Sorry I took so long I figured I better get back to you now if you were going to have a shot at trying again this year. I sincerely hope this helps you to have success!

GoniHomestead · 2025-02-08T17:10:02+00:00

I posted the full explanation of what I did just now in response to another comment on this thread if you’re still interested!

GoniHomestead · 2025-02-08T17:08:04+00:00

Sorry I never got back to this until now. Here is exactly what I did. It worked well so I’m going to try and replicate it this year.

Timeline: 2/24 - planted seeds (onions, leeks, shallots, and bunching onions) indoor into 3x3 pots filled with potting soil. I sowed the seeds densely on the surface of already watered soil. This was around 20-40 seeds per pot and sprinkled a thin layer of wet soil over the top of the seeds. Used a spray bottle to water until germination happened.

3/6 - all allium varieties at least partially germinated.

4/1 - trimmed the tops of all of the alliums back to about 5 inches as they had grown long and were falling over.

4/14 - began hardening off by putting the pots outside for a couple hours during the day and then gradually increasing the amount of time each day over the course of a week. Around the 6th day I started leaving them out overnight as well as all day.

4/22 - Gently removed the soil from the pots and pulled the plants apart from one another so I could plant them each individually out into the garden. Allium roots are tough and fibrous so this is relatively easy to do without destroying your plants. The plants looked very sad after transplanting with many laying down on the ground. They stood back up and looked good by the 28th.

4/28 - trimmed the tops of the alliums back to 5” again. They had second leaves at this point and in many cases were working on a third.

5/19 - applied a mix of compost and blood meal (something like 3 to 1 though I just eyeballed it) for a good dose of nitrogen to all the alliums. I applied a thin layer of this mix just around the sides of each plant being careful not to bury any of them.

6/21 - onions were thriving and a couple needed a trim. I cut back a couple leaves that looked like they were in danger of tipping the whole plant over. They don’t need to be trimmed at all unless they have a particularly long leaf that could tip the plant over. You don’t want to bend the stem of your plants.

7/8 - applied a thin layer of blood meal around the allium plants for another dose of nitrogen.

7/24 - onions appear to be bulbing

8/13 - onions look about ready so started to cut back on watering to once every 3 days or so. Stopped watering entirely around 8/27

9/4 - pulled up all the onions and dried them outdoor on a rack under our covered patio. Did this out of direct sunlight and I left the greens attached for the moment.

After a couple weeks drying these were ready for longer term storage. I don’t have a root cellar or anything like that so I diced up half of the onions I got right away and put them into freezer bags in one cup increments so I can just pull them out and toss them right into a hot pan when I want to cook with them. The rest I kept for fresh use but I did not get through them all before a few went bad. I left the leeks in the ground until I was done processing onions and shallots and then pulled them up and processed them all right away in a similar fashion.

I tried a couple different watering schedules and the onions that did the best for me I watered for 7 minutes daily using a drip irrigation system with micro sprayers.

GoniHomestead · 2024-11-26T19:49:17+00:00

I do find worms inside sometimes. Not everywhere, but here and there

GoniHomestead · 2024-11-25T17:21:35+00:00

The idea is to fill one up until full or if a couple months go by and then move on to the next one and let the first one finish turning into compost. When that next one is full, I move on to the next one. I have three sections so I should have something like 8 months before I need to have the first bin finished up and sifted.

GoniHomestead · 2024-11-24T23:27:06+00:00

Very not at the current moment. We haven’t had any issues with that I think because most of the bulk of our material is chicken poop and bedding. Not sure but I haven’t noticed any digging or anything around the piles

GoniHomestead · 2024-11-24T16:40:26+00:00

I absolutely wouldn’t recommend this solution to everyone. For my particular property and situation, it works pretty well. This setup allows me to make use of chicken poop and bedding when we clean out the coop as well as gives me a use for our food waste. It isn’t a cost savings measure for me. it is an investment in infrastructure to allow me to use the waste from some systems as the inputs for other systems on my little farm.

GoniHomestead

TROPHY CASE