Drying Onions Can Attract Bugs

Q: We have a vegetable garden, and my husband is drying small onions in the house. We don’t have a shed or carport, and the garage is too hot right now. Will this attract mice or bugs? 

A: Yes, drying onions can attract bugs. The curing is necessary to make the onion form a hard “‘shell’” around the interior of the onion. This minimizes spoilage. This process takes two to four weeks, until the top of each onion is brown and the outer leaves are dry and papery. If you judge that they are sufficiently cured, you can alert your husband, and he can move them to cool, dry winter storage … hopefully, where you don’t smell them all the time.