It is very important for vegetable growers to know how to grow onions. If you want to plant a vegetable in your raised garden bed, in backyard garden, or in the underground, it's your own onions! They are important not only in food, but also in intercropping and pest control.
Fresh onions are an important ingredient in almost every meal soup, stew, roast chicken, lasagna, and even pizza. Without onions, food is often rather bland. You need onions to cook, so it's in your best interest to plant a lot of these aromatic vegetables in your garden. Here are three ways to plant them in your garden bed like a professional. Follow any of these to grow onions every year!
Prepare for the success of onion harvesting
Especially if you want to start onion seeds, you need the right conditions. Let's do some introductory knowledge about how to prepare and maintain the planting area. We will discuss what your onions need to thrive and the basic growth conditions so that you can get huge bulbs from your garden.
Soil
Onions need fertile, well drained soil to produce bulbs, no matter how you plant them. Because you need to keep the soil always wet, if your soil is difficult to keep moisture, you can add a little cocoa coconut shell or peat moss to the soil. Compost and worm castings also help to retain moisture.
If you live in a place where native soil is compacted, it is best to plant onions in elevated beds or planting bags. Compacted soil is one of the key problems that people may face when trying to plant onions.
Water
When it comes to soil nutrients and onion's ability to absorb them, soil moisture is the key. If there is no water to combine certain nutrients, onions can hardly grow normally. The basic rule is to keep the soil moisture consistent.
Regularly inspect planting areas to determine if additional irrigation is required. If the soil dries to your first knuckle, water the area. If you encounter heat wave at any time during onion planting, please be more alert than usual.
Fertilize onions
Although any fertile garden soil is enough to support your bulbs and provide a healthy harvest, you can add some fertilizer to your raised bed to strengthen them. Before sowing, transplanting or inlaying, add a little organic 10-20-10 fertilizer about 2-3 inches below the planting area.
Although this is not absolutely necessary, you can feed onions throughout the growth process. Providing high nitrogen fertilizer every 2 to 3 weeks and watering will help.
Onion spacing and depth
Proper spacing of onions is one of the most important things to know before planting. We will discuss the details of the method described below, but the general rule for onion planting is to space onions 2 to 4 inches, and at least 18 inches between onion rows. This is especially important if you plan to grow onions with seeds.
The variety you choose to plant will slightly change your spacing. For example, if you are growing onions, or onions specifically for their vegetables - such as Evergreen or Tokyo onions - you can space them 1 inch apart. If you are dealing with sweet onion varieties, space them 4 to 5 inches apart. The resulting onion ball should be your guide.
Plant your suit or graft so that the top of the onion sticks out of the ground with just a little skin poking above the top of the soil. Don't plant them too deep, because it will hinder their development.
Pests and problems
Onion root maggot is one of the most destructive pests of immature and mature onions. You can prevent maggots from controlling onion flies. When planting onions, cover them with floating row covers, or sprinkle diatomite around the bottom of the planting. Allium crops rotate every few seasons, so they have no base camp.
If you plant onions a few weeks before the last frost, your plant may not have time to form bulbs, but will get flower stems and onion flowers. Please remember to correctly arrange planting time about 30 days before the last winter frost.
Finally, if you plant onions in substandard pot mixtures, clays, or moist soil, they may rot before they have a chance to produce large bulbs. Keep the garden moist, but not too damp. The soil will be a little dry before you water the onions. Use compost or worm castings to improve poor soil.
How to plant onions from seeds
Want to be a gardening expert? It may be difficult to grow onions from seeds, but it can produce onions that ripen faster. To plant them with seeds, you need to put them underground about 30 days before the last frost date. Continue sowing every few weeks. You can plant them in autumn - in some parts of the south, the prime time for planting onions with seeds is from autumn to early spring.
Make sure that you do not use more than one year of seed. Onion seeds lose their vitality quickly if stored. Seeds older than 1 year are much less likely to grow, so you are unlikely to grow onions from seeds. If you really want to increase the chances of planting onions, please use fresh seeds for the best results!
How to plant onions as grafts
If you have onions in your backyard, you really don't need to plant new seeds. You can transplant onions from existing onion plants or purchase bare root onion bundles for transplantation. You can even start the seed indoors for later transplantation. For people in the northern United States: You will start planting onions at least 8 weeks before the last frost in winter. This will ensure that the ground will not be too cold and the risk of frost will be much lower when the buds are transplanted after 6 weeks.
For people in the southern United States: place seedlings in autumn or winter.
Plant the seeds in the seed starting container or flat ground. Once they start growing, thin the seedlings until they are about 1/2 inch apart and about 2 inches apart. This makes it easier for them to separate at transplanting time and ensures that surviving seedlings grow healthily and strongly. A few weeks before they are to be transplanted, it is time to harden the seedlings. Place the tray in an outdoor shelter (protected from light and wind) for several hours a day. Let them stay there longer and longer until they get used to the sunshine all day long.
Transplantation day: Carefully lift them, shake off the soil, trim any thin parts of the plant until the seedlings are about 6 inches long, dig ditches for the seedlings, and then plant them. Eventually, you want onions to be planted about 4 to 6 inches apart, but now, plant them closer together. This will allow you to harvest onions (when they are young).
How to plant onions in sets
For beginners who want a simple route, the onion set is the perfect choice. They are small onion bulbs, or immature onions, which are forced into dormancy before they are mature. Once you plant them in your garden, they will continue to grow and soon produce onions. Most of the time, when people grow sweet onions, this is how they grow them. Your plant date should be between 14 and 30 days before the last frost date. If you live in a country (or world) with mild winter, you can plant onion sets in autumn and winter.
These suits need to be planted in shallow trenches and covered with only a small amount of soil - just enough so that you can still see the sharp tip. Plant them about 4 to 6 inches. If you want to harvest onions as young onions, plant them closer.
The only disadvantage of using onion sets is that your onion variety is limited. However, many of them are sweet varieties.
When you purchase an onion set meal, do not purchase the largest onion set meal in the trash. These may eventually seed rather than produce large onion bulbs. Instead, look for a collection with a diameter of about 1/2 inch. These are the best onions!
Important: Day length and onion
When the days begin to grow longer, onions begin to grow! This is a rule of thumb that you can use to learn when to plant and plant onions. This will also help you determine when to start harvesting onions. Onions grown in the south are different from those grown in the north. This is because there is more sunshine in the north.
When you purchase onion seeds, please find the appropriate seeds according to your region. Only a few varieties of onions can be grown anywhere; The rest need to be planted in the right area to grow normally. For example, short day onions are suitable for days with 10 hours of sunshine.
