(I just liked the way that titled rolled off my tongue.)

This year is the first year I’ve ever planted onions. I didn’t set out to grow them but my father-in-law gave me a couple dozen red and yellow starts so I found the room. They were unceremoniously sandwiched beside the cherry roma, purple haze carrots and green snap beans and for the most part ignored after that.

Recently I noticed (while out drooling over my soon-to-be-ripe cherry romas) that the tops of my onions were drying out a bit and then over the course of a couple days they all fell over. Oh no! I killed them! Or so I thought… After a little research I discovered that this is perfectly natural, it means I can harvest them soon (yay!) All I have to do is step down on the tops (done!), not water them for a few days and then pull them up and let them cure some more in a dry ventilated area.

Wait. Not water them for a few days?!

But what about my tomatoes? My beans? My carrots? My dill, basil, cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini, ground cherries… All my raised beds are covered by the same sprinkler and it is 90F out, they need water. I’m sorry but I am not sacrificing my tomatoes for a few onions! This year’s raised bed lesson, onions need their own segregated area.

I am not overly worried, I don’t intend on storing these for the winter by any means, they’ll probably all be eaten within a couple weeks. This raises the question, do I really need to worry about having them cure properly? Should I try to cover them when watering the rest of the bed (one of my friends sugguested inverting a bucket over them while I water), or just pull them up and let them cure on a table on the deck for a few days?

What would you do?