Growing Onions from seed

[HunkieDorie23]

I started growing onions from seed a couple of years ago. I got a lot of info on this site but I also read this site. http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/4076/how-to-grow-onions-from-seed

Has anyone ever grown onions like this? Specifially the removing the soil from around the onion so that is sits on the soil.

 

[digitS']

Teresa , I have grown onions from seed for a good number of years.

I have never removed the soil from around the bulb.

But, let me say that my garden soil drains really well. The bulbs often are quite exposed within a few weeks into the bulbing stage. But, no, I make no effort to pull the soil back from the plants.

Maybe it makes sense in soil with lots of clay - I don't know. The bulb is NOT a root, of course. It is the base of the leaves (and the roots are the white threads that are in the ground below the bulb).

I must say that the author of that article goes to greater efforts than I do :/. For example, she says, "Of the hundreds of seedlings I transplant each spring, I dread doing those onions."

I'll just say that I agree that onion plants are somewhat fragile. But, I think that I'd just go ahead and put those "36 plants of a half-dozen varieties" directly into the garden without putting them in 6-packs first. Still, those are very nice plants that she is setting out in her garden in that one picture .

Steve

 

[HunkieDorie23]

They do look nice but I would be afraid that the bulbs would burn. My mother always covered her onions and so I have always covered them also. I do about 200-300 onions years but I have a large family and I am of hungarian descent which means you use onions.

 

[digitS']

Just after transplanting:

Several weeks later (notice the dill ):

After some "thinning" of scallions and after a few have been harvested mature:

Yeah, I didn't know that my family ate so many onions when I was a kid. Then, I got out in the wider world and learned that some folks, don't even eat onions :/. I find them very easy to grow from sets and purchased plants. They aren't that difficult to grow from seed & seedlings . . . just don't let too many dillweeds grow in there amongst 'em !

Steve

 

[catjac1975]

Are those stones a t the top of your soil?
I don't see any mulch. How do you keep them so well weeded?
Do you get large onions form seed?

 

[digitS']

Catjac, those are stones on top the soil and all the way down to the pre-Iceage valley floor! I could show you the boulders that have been dug out of that garden. What remains, is inconsequential by comparison .

Weed-free? Well, not really. One reason that I sow seed indoors is so that I can hit that ground repeatedly to kill emerging weeds before the plants go in. Onions especially are very poor competitors and the weeds will crowd them down to nothing . . . Keep them weed-free as best you can, and they can grow a lot.

This Ovation onion (might be one in the picture above) is only 9 oz but . . . maybe it shrunk a little after sitting 5 months on a basement shelf . There's no question that the Walla Walla that I sometimes buy as plants from Texas become larger after their season in my garden than the Walla Walla that will be started from seed in my greenhouse in a couple of weeks. Those TX plants aren't very expensive but I can sure grow lots of onions from a big packet of seed .

Steve

 

[HunkieDorie23]

Do you plant the dill in with the onions? Is that a companion plant? I have a corner of my garden that is a little rocky. Not quite as bad as your but it doesn't really bother anything.

 

[digitS']

I don't think that many gardens could be worse for rocks than my big veggie garden :/.

No, the dill volunteers . . . and some plants are left to make seed so that they will.

Because the onions are so "tolerant" of companions, this arrangement makes sense. As long as things don't get outta hand so that the onions would suffer.

Steve

 

[Greenthumb18]

I actually prefer to grow onions from onion transplants. Their much easier and quicker to grow. Last year I grew Alisa Craig onions their ok but not too good for storage. I have them hanging inside my garage and their sprouting leaves, must use them before they go bad on me. I'm looking for a onion this year with better storage and large size .

 

[HunkieDorie23]

I grew those last year and they don't store that well. I am going with a white pearl onion so that I can try pickling them for later use. Then I have spanish yellow and a sweet red. I have been buying onions since Dec.