ONIONS

[glenn57]

need help/advice. after years of planting onions i got tired of the end result, small onions. i have had 2 people at the campground give me huge onions and i want them next year. only issue is there a little forgetful on where they bought the set and what name goes along with these nice softball size onions. can anyone be more helpful? THANKS.

[UdeLakeTom]

What no corn??

[glenn57]

hey ULT, look, its glenn NOT GARY!!!!

[glenn57]

cant anyone help me out here?????

[KEN W]

Most large onions come from using plants not sets.The best one I have found is Candy,Alsa Craig gets really large but doesn't keep as well.I start my own but you should be able to find them at the local green house.

The trick to getting large onions is to plant them as early as possible.Up here we grow long day onions.They start to bulb up when we have the most daylight hours.The larger the top is at that time.....the larger the bulb will be.

Plant them 6-8 inches apart and give them fertilizer every 3 weeks or so.

[eurolarva]

Walla Walla. Walmart sells sets of these for around 3 bucks for around 60. I have had good luck planting seeds in peet pots in early march and using grow lights for 16 hours. I keep trimming the tops every week to keep them short then transplant into the ground in early may. The main keys for onions is to make sure you plant long day onions. Mn is a long light day in the summer. When you plant them you only want the bottom of the bulb and the roots in the dirt. If you bury onions too deep they will not bulb very well. I like to plant every three inches and thin during the season using them for green onions or picking the small bulbs and using them through out the year. My onion sets did pretty good but the ones I started from seed indoors did awesome. This pic is from early July. About 20 were almost softball size

[straydog]

Off to walmart you go.

[glenn57]

funny guy straydog!!! i found a greenhouse this weekend that will have them SSSOOOOOOO wallyworld will again not get my business!

[glenn57]

thanks for the info eurolarva, and the planting instructions.

[UdeLakeTom]

Somebody must think Glenn has a problem with Wally World.

[glenn57]

yeah, i wonder what ever gave him that idea????

[eurolarva]

If you have the room do the grow lights and start them from seed. I did this with my tomatoes, japalerno and onions. Every time I walk into a nursery I spend at least 30 bucks plus my stuff comes up early. I usually eat tomatoes around mid July. One bag of seeds is enough to do almost 500 onions. I used the same bag two years in a row. About 80 percent of my seed onions bulb ed large where only about 40 percent of the sets did well. Nursery had the sets but if you pay 10 bucks for onion sets it is cheaper to buy them at a store. The other advantage to doing them indoor it is a long time from March to May. It gives me something to do during the worse part of winter.