I've never tried storing onion sets, so I can't say whether you'll have any luck with that. May I offer another idea? If you have a little extra space in your garden, plant your remaining onion sets. But plant them close together, 1 to 2 inches apart, and in a few weeks you ought to be able to harvest green onions (scallions). If you're out of space, you could probably just stick the extra sets in between the onion sets you've already planted. As I said above, just thin these out once they've sprouted as green onions, and let the sets you originally planted grow as normal.

No matter where you live in the South, sweet onions are not storage onions and do not keep well at all. May have to consider the crawl space or another freezer. With a family of 5 it really pays off when veggie prices are low in the summer and high in the winter and shipped in from who knows where. Besides, cooking with your homegrown frozen-fresh veggies is a taste you can't duplicate from store-bought. Next bet is local farmers markets for those who don't have enough room to grow all they want. Nancy the nancedar

With regards to onion storage, proper curing will usually help prevent rot and allow the onions to store for a very long time. But, hand in hand with that, you have to be lucky and not get rainfall in the final week or two before you harvest your onions. You also need to be smart enough to look at the calendar and realize you should stop watering them as they get close to maturity. Onions that have had a great deal of moisture, whether from rainfall or irrigation, in the last couple of weeks before they are harvested often retain too much moisture and don't cure as well as those that are drier in their final weeks of growth. We cannot control rainfall but we can control our irrigation habits. Larry, I have things like that happen to me in various storage locations in various years too and it is one of the most vexing things about dry storage. An area that works great in an average year may not work as well in a very hot or very wet year. I always keep an eye on things throughout their storage period, and move them around as needed. I think the biggest factor with mine, no matter the temperatures, is always air flow. If I can manage air flow, it seems like the temperatures and humidity don't cause as much trouble. One year when it was really wet and the humidity was too high all summer long, I kept the onions in black plastic mesh plant trays on a baker's rack on a shady porch that never gets direct sunlight, and for comparison's sake, kept others on plastic shelves in the tornado shelter, The porch onions had great air flow and I didn't move them inside the tornado shelter until the first frost was approaching in November. I know I had stored onions that still were decent quality and were useable in at least February The tornado shelter onions were sprouting green sprouts by October, and I think that was because of less air flow. Sometimes it is a guessing game to figure out where to put them for storage in some conditions. Mia, I think the heat this year may have caused dry rot. That's usually what you have when they crumble to dust in your hand. It has been hard to store onions out in garages and sheds this year because of the heat. Some years I just cannot get the onions to cure as well as i like. I've cured them for a month some years in plastic mesh nursery flats on tables on the covered patio, and still didn't get them as dry as I wanted them before I put them into storage. Usually that is in the wet years. Also, we all need to remember that for best storage, we have to patiently wait for the onion tops to fall over on their own and for the necks of the onions to be soft before we harvest them. If you harvest them green and the necks are not drying down naturally, they'll never cure as well as onions harvested at a drier, less-green stage. Some years a severe thunderstorm with high wind will bend and even break the onion necks before the onions are mature and those onions do not keep well in storage. If that happens in my garden, I either use them up quickly (not hard to do at all if it is salsa-canning season) or chop and freeze those for winter cooking because they will not store well even after they are cured--they are too green internally to cure like a fully mature onion will. Carol, Yes, I always store at least some of them in the mesh bags. It is a little more time-consuming, but once they are done, I am confident each and every one of them will have good air flow. Back before I found the mesh tubes, which I guess was 5 or 6 years ago, I stored them the same way, but in the leg portions cut from panty hose. Of course, you don't get as many onions in one leg as you do in a mesh tube, but it worked equally well. Our pantry is a walk-in pantry that goes back up under the staircase and it has shelves along one wall. Them there is open floor space for the 'aisle' where we walk and then there is the north pantry wall. I have nails on the north wall and on some of the undersides of the stairs so I can just hang mesh tubes of onion (or garlic, or whatever) on that wall. Every now and then I rotate the mesh tubes so that the side of the onions facing the wall are now facing the open area. Sometimes I have hung them from the top of a baker's rack in the laundry room when I have too many to put in the pantry (in one of those great onion years when I fill up the freezer compartment in the garage fridge with them) and some years I hang them in the tornado shelter too. However, I usually keep potatoes in the tornado shelter, so do not necessarily put onions in there with the potatoes. I try to keep my onions and potatoes separate in storage because they have different humidity needs for long-term storage and I try to put them wherever I can get them as close as possible to the humidity levels they need. Normally, the humidity in my tornado shelter is closer to what potatoes need than what onions need. For those of you who are not familiar with mesh onion storage tubes, I'll link the supplier. They are long and hold a single layer of onions. You tie the mesh in between each onion and that tied space (you can use anything--string, Velcro strips, zip ties, bread bag twist ties, etc.) separates each onion from the next, providing dry air space between them. Some of our local stores often have mesh storage bags (like onion sacks from the store) and burlap bags in early spring when they have onions and seed potatoes, and the mesh bags would work reasonably well for onion storage, but the onions would touch each other and anywhere they touch, there is the potential for rot. I think the mesh bags are fine for fairly short term storage, but for long-term storage I prefer the mesh tubes. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Mesh Onion Storage Tubes

Yes, do keep them out of humidity. If the sun ever comes out (I'm not too far from you, in WV, and it has been raining for 2 1/2 months straight!) then put them out in a single layer in the sun during the day to cure. Take them in at night when the dew falls. (I use big buckets to do the daily transporting. )Do this for one or two weeks, and they'll be well cured. Then, what I do with mine is braid them using twine and whatever of the dried tops are still left. Then I hang them in a large closet. The braiding and hanging makes sure there is a plenty of air around them. The closet makes it dark so they don't think about growing. If you can find a place in your house that is dark and dry and also cool, all the better. My onions don't get the "cold" part of best storage methods, but they still last until late spring.If they start to sprout around April, I put the last on them in the fridge and that slows down their springtime aspirations. Good luck, and congrats on the great harvest!