»What to do when onions bolt«
Bolting is when an onion shifts its energy from producing a bulb to producing flowers and the seed.
Onions bolt basically when they are under stress and the stress includes that of heat, cold, too much water and not enough water can stress out an onion causing bolting. Temperature fluctuations can also make onions to bolt.
Managing bolting
When you notice that your onions have started bolting, you can harvest and use or store the onions.
You can also cut off the flower. This does not allow the bulbs to grow bigger but it buys you some time to allow you use up the onions.
You can leave a portion of the bolting onions to flower and produce seed. These can be harvested and used as planting seed the following season.
Using bolted onions
Bolted onions can be used same way as normal onions. When onions bolt, you don’t need to wait for the leaves to dry out before harvesting them because if you wait till the leaves dry then the onion bulb would rot.
Bolt onions are stored differently from normal onions. They can be stored by chopping them and freezing them, by slicing and dehydrating them, or freeze drying.
To prevent bolting, choose a correct onion variety for your climate, plant at the right time, plant onion seeds or transplants.
