Why Y'all Should Grow Onions

If y'all love onions in your cooking, make room for them in your garden. They're a snap to grow and don't need lots of space, yielding even in pots. Larn the basics of how to constitute onions, and you might only be able to strike them from your grocery list for proficient.

Starting time With the Right Onion

The secret to a great harvest of fat onion bulbs is choosing the right onion for your region. Onions grade bulbs in response to daylength, and they're sold as short twenty-four hours, long day or intermediate onions. Those categories are based on latitude.

  • Long 24-hour interval onions grow all-time at latitudes of 37 to 47 degrees (roughly Zones half-dozen and colder).
  • Brusk day onions grow best at latitudes of 25 to 35 degrees (Zones seven and warmer).
  • Intermediate onions overlap the other regions, growing best at latitudes of 32 to 42 degrees (Zones 5 to 6).

You tin grow any type of onion in whatever zone, but for best results, dig up an onion map online. You can notice them on most seed-seller sites.

Seeds, Sets or Seedlings? What'south the Difference?

Seeds need the near fourth dimension to yield an onion crop, and you'll need to start them indoors. Sow onion seeds indoors x weeks earlier the last average frost appointment for your region. Separate seedlings at planting fourth dimension.

Sets are mini onion bulbs that you lot establish one-half-an-inch deep. Many people abound onions from sets; they're widely bachelor for sale. One drawback to sets is that the bulbs they produce don't usually grow as large. That's considering a set is already one yr old. Onions live for two years. In the first year, they course bulbs; in the second, they grade seeds. Sets are predisposed to shift into flowering style considering they're already a year erstwhile. Sets are also more susceptible to disease. If you're planting both sets and seedlings, place them in dissimilar parts of the garden.

Seedlings (above), likewise called starts, are small onion plants that resemble a tiny green onion. You lot can buy these at local garden centers or home stores or order them from onion farmers online. Seedlings are in their first year of growth, so they're ready to form bulbs.

Prepare Your Soil

Give onions a spot in total lord's day with loose, crumbly soil loftier in organic matter. Enrich soil with compost or composted manure to increase the nutrients it contains. Onions grow best in mounded rows (4 inches high) or raised beds.

How to Constitute Onions

Tuck onions into the garden 4 to half dozen weeks before your last average frost engagement. Plant onion sets ane/2-inch deep; seedlings, 1 inch deep. Avoid planting too deeply, which reduces the onion'due south ability to class a bulb.

Seedlings with the diameter of a pencil form the best bulbs. Grow larger and smaller ones as green onions. Space onions iv inches apart for bulbs. If you want to grow any as green onions, plant them ii inches apart, harvesting every other one to create that platonic 4-inch spacing for bulbs. It'south okay to constitute ones you'll pull as green onions deeper than 1 inch because you don't want a bulb to course. Planting deeper yields more of the juicy white stalk.

Water Your Onions Well

Water bulbs later planting to settle soil. Onions often appear to grow very little at the offset of the season. Be patient and look. They will abound.

Keep Your Onions Well-Fed

Onions need different nutrients at different points in their growing bike. Start the growing season with a fertilizer that has a high eye number (phosphorus). Every 3 to 4 weeks after planting, feed them with a high-nitrogen product (first number higher). Many gardeners adopt using a water soluble fertilizer similar fish emulsion to give onions the nitrogen they need. Stop fertilizing when bulbs start to course.

Pull Weeds

Clear all weeds prior to planting and keep them removed during the growing season. If yous use mulch to assist suppress weeds, pull it back from the onions every bit bulbs start to form.

Wait for the Harvest

When onions are set up to harvest, the green tops turn brown and fall over. On a sunny day, pull onions early in the morning. Allow them lay on the growing bed in the sunday for two to three days. Cover the bulbs with the tops of another onion to prevent sunscald. Don't let bulbs get wet at this point. Dew is okay; rain is not.

Cure the Crop

A properly cured onion stores the longest. Curing means the onion has dried thoroughly from the cervix (where the stem meets the bulb) to the seedling surface. The onion skin becomes dry and papery. When tops are completely dry out, they should pull correct off the seedling. After curing your onions outdoors for a few days, motion them indoors to a spot where they're protected from weather condition and have good air menstruum. Lay them on screens to finish drying. When bulbs are completely dry, clip roots and either prune or braid tops.

Store for Wintertime

Place onions in a cool, dry out surface area with adept air flow. Tuck bulbs into a mesh bag to increment air exposure. In a cool spot (45 F), onions store from iii to 10 months. Sweeter onions commonly don't store as well, so plan to eat those first.