Lift them by pulling gently if possible and leave on top of the soil for a few days to dry off. Store somewhere cool and dry.

Thank you MG. Unfortunately, there isn't anywhere at present that could be described as remotely cool - even the cellars are at 30°, and it's very humid. Do you think I would be better off leaving them where they are for the moment?

Wait till the leaves turn yellow (you can use them earlier if you prefer smaller onions), uproot, keeping the foliage on top (some plait them), place on an easterly facing wall to dry out for a week or 2 out of direct sun - so cover with a board. They should be fine to keep after that.

Thank you both.

Yes you can leave them in the ground and they will continue to grow, we normally plait our onions but with the monsoon I doubt we are going to get much of a crop!

Oh Dear! Is there no let-up yet?
We dug up our onions last year and didn't really let them dry properly, I think. The cellar where we hung them was quite dark, and within a month we had sprouting onions growing up round the beams! Such a waste!

If we see the sun for a few hours one day a week we get all excited Gattina...

Yes, I've noticed that. Some people have been waxing quite lyrical just because it's stopped raining...........
I'd VERY gladly swap weather with you for maybe a week - everything here is dying (including us). The temperatures only drop below 35° at night, and a lot of the time they are well above 40°. It's exhausting. We're spending a lot of time shut in darkened rooms, smothered in insect repellent. :o(

Realised I did not say you need lots of air around the onions even after they have dried we hang ours, when we have any to hang, in the potting shed which is light and very airy.

When I get up my onions one has to do this, using zinc talc, to get a nice coloured skin

"remove the outer skins to leave one unblemished last skin. Wash in tepid water with a drop of washing up liquid and dry the bulbs with some soft tissue or towelling. Apply the powder on to the onion once with a soft pad or cotton wool and leave in an airy room"

Bit like working on a baby's botty :)

I get mine up as soon as they reach the size of a tennis ball as they need to be 8 oz or under which is about that size. Any that aren't that size are left in longer until they get to that size. Due to start lifting the first very soon.

Scrupmyg. I think you are talking about onions for showing rather than storing for eating? I certainly would not want to use zinc talc on an onion I was then going to cook with! Whilst I recognise, and applaud, your growing show veg. (just as Bulba and I grow show alpines) my understanding is that Gattina is asking for advice on lifting and storing onions to use in cooking.

Exactly! We aren't such great gardeners that we'd show anything we grew, Scrumpyg, but thanks for the compliment! There aren't horticultural, or even agricultural shows here. Eating is the sole aim! I think your bit about keeping the onions in the light is quite important, MG. We don't have a potting shed, and the temperatures in our summerhouse get up near the 50° mark, so maybe hanging them from the branches of the fig tree (shaded, but light and relatively cool - there's a through breeze) might be the answer. Sounds a bit eccentric, but we'll give it a go. Thank you.

Gattina....I like the idea of you hanging your onions from the branches of your fig tree.....we may end up with a picture here on GOY with help for an id of a tree growing onions :)))))

Been eating them like that for donkeys years. No harm.
Zinc oxide is used as a suntan lotion for the onions, Talc is used to prevent excessive drying out leading to splitting of the skins, so that in theory you get a nice pale colour that the judges love. Zinc containing suntan creams are the most effective, and going back to babies, good old Metanium ,containing Titanium,for nappy rash is also a cracking sun tan cream.

As an aside, Zinc in powdered form is available in capsules and is supposedly good for the immune system. And you'll find that talc is used in most tablets and capsules as a bulking agent. So those purchasing Zinc capsules may as well have one of my onions instead :)

Good thing about showing veg, is that it's the same growing principle for eating as for showing, with the added benefit that once the shows are over, you eat the "winners" and "losers", so even though Gattina didn't mention cooking anywhere, the end result is still the same.

How well onions store depends on the variety grown as well.
Given identical conditions, some will sprout a lot earlier than others. Mine are stored in a cold garage, very little light, from late July and last well into March before they start to go. Always the red ones first, then the smaller ones. And the wife likes the onions the size of tennis balls as one of them does a stew nicely. So there is a bit of cooking logic, as well as showing logic, with my method.

You learn something new every day!