How to grow big onions??

[BuckSutherland]

Whats the secret?? Should I be planting deeper or shallower. Water is not a problem.

I am going to try some potatoes, onions, lettuce and radishes at the end of the week.

[CANOPY SAM]

Phew! Next week? It must be a LOT nicer where you are then where I am! I was just out doing the ritual spring cleaning of the frozen dog bombs, and the wind is howling out of the north/northwest, there were actually snow flurries, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the wind chill is hovering near zero! We still have large berms of snow to melt all around our farm. I won't be planting a thing until the first week of June is here.

For really nice big onions I think it's really important to start with a variety that is actually known to grow really big! I've switched almost entirely to the big southern sweet yellow varieties, in live shoots rather then bulbs.

I tried a little experiment last year with locally purchased onion bulbs...you know the ones we all see in baskets at the grocery store, or big box stores. Anywho, I intentionally carefully picked out what looked to be the largest, healthiest bulbs in the bin and put all those in one bag (about 75 of them). Then I picked out much smaller, healthy bulbs and put those in another bag (also about 75 of them). When I planted I put the big healthy bulbs in one row, and in another row I planted the smaller bulbs. I was really curious to see if the end product would be any different.

I treated both rows exactly the same way. Same watering, same sunlight, same planting depth, etc. Come harvest time there was absolutely no difference in the two different rows of onions. They all were reasonably sized, maybe small baseball sized white and yellow onions. Nice onions, but nothing to brag about.

However, their neighbors, the onion "shoots" (or live plants) I put in, the sweet southern yellow variety, were huge (every one the size of a softball) sweet delicious onions! One would think that a large bulb would end up significantly bigger then a puny little shoot, but no! It was actually quite the opposite. I've grown them for several years now, and they consistently come out way ahead of the bulbs.

My best luck for really big onions is actually contrary to what you say above. I plant them as shallow as possible. Basically just deep enough to see the roots take hold in the mellow rich soil, while the majority of the bulb remains above ground. This can be tricky with new "shoots" and bulbs, as too aggressive watering until the roots really take hold can unearth the plants, but they seem to be quite hardy, and simply replanting them doesn't seem to set them back at all. Once the roots have taken hold, and the bulbs really begin to grow, I actually get down on my hands and knees and carefully clear away any dirt around the bulbs that will prevent them from expanding to their maximum size. All I want to see covered are the roots, and perhaps a little bit of the bottom of the onion bulb to help the plant remain upright while growing.

I don't believe I'll ever plant store bought bulbs again. They do grow fairly nice onions, but nothing compared to the live shoots one can buy at the greenhouse, or from some of the seed catalogs. These wispy little shoots don't look like they'll have a prayer of a chance to survive, but with gentle watering, and a little TLC in the first few weeks after planting, they'll grow into the nicest onions you've ever seen! And once dried properly after harvest, they keep all thru the winter, and remain sweet and delicious the whole time! We're still eating onions we harvested last September, and they're as good as they were when we first pulled them from the ground!

[PurpleFloyd]

Whats the secret?? Should I be planting deeper or shallower. Water is not a problem.

I am going to try some potatoes, onions, lettuce and radishes at the end of the week.

I would suggest spreading a healthy dose of sillytown over the soil.

[fishwater]

Yeah, using first year plant starts for onions is very important, not only for size, but also for storage potential. The little onion bulbs are going into their second year of life; as a biennial, they really want to make seed during the second year, they have a lot more going on than just growing like the first year plants.

[CANOPY SAM]

Oh, and one more thing. I think I mentioned this last year during harvest time.

My wife and I have been big "canners" since we were married 25 years ago. We absolutely love all the fresh garden produce, but also see that we can enjoy our own homegrown veggies all year round. So it's not unusual for us to "put up" 150 pints of green beans, 5 gallons of pickles in quart jars, 5-7 gallons of salsa in pints and quarts, 150+ pints and quarts of tomatoes, etc., etc..

We have an entire storage room dedicated to canned food, and a root cellar to store taters, onions, squash, etc..

A couple years ago we decided to try pickling onions, as we'd always thrown in a few diced onions in our garlic pickles for flavor. Well let me tell you WHAT! These pickled onions are nothing short of fabulous! We do half pints, pints, and even quarts of sliced, pickled onions, and even people who are not typically fans of onions just go ga-ga over these onions. They're just so tasty, and handy for throwing on shredded pork sandwiches, BBQ's, or wherever you want them.

And they're super easy to can up and pickle. Except for the actual slicing part. Even chilled in the fridge for a few hours before slicing them, you still end up crying your eyes out slicing up several gallons of fresh onions! But it's well worth the effort!

[BuckSutherland]

I think I am going to seed my lettuce today. The girls eat it by the pail full around here. Leaf lettuce. I know my radishes will make it too.

I am gonna have to try some these onion shoots.

I also have some red potatoes in the basement that have about 1 ft sprouts on them. Can I use those for seed?? I want to try a couple of hills real early.

I have soil that is a little light on organic matter so it dries and warms faster than most. Full sun doesnt hurt either. I dont do any tillage in there, just go through with a little claw to break the crust, and then plant. Soil is really getting mellow.

I think I will do the lettuce today. It is dry enough to go.

[pushbutton]

Like mentioned above plants will work better than sets.....really small sets do ok as well. Biggest trick is to properly time what variety you have. Most onions are categorized into long day or short day cultivars. Long day onions bulb in lets say 14 to 16 day length while short day produce bulbs in 10 -12 hour light periods.....which, in our neck of the woods, pretty much rules out popular onions like vidalia or walla wallas. Here in the hinterland we pretty much need the long day variety. This can often be the problem with most big box store varieties as the big growers that supply them are not geared up for extreme northern climates. Jr and I always give some of the short day super sweet varieties a go. Some years, like two years ago it works out, a year like last....not so much. In order to do this, we overwinter some plants or small sets started in the fall, under a mound of leaves and usually have well over 50 percent survival. We pulled the leaves off last weekend and do officially have something green growing already. Don't know if these will bulb well this year, thinking probably not, but for sure we will have some super sweet, super large green onions early this year.

[Big-Al]

I started my onions from seed this year in hopes of growing some nice large, good storing bulbs this year. I planted about four weeks ago and just transplanted a couple of days ago.

[larryz]

Google dixondale farms for everything you need to know about onions. We have been ordering from them and planting as instructed for several years. Very nice onions that keep well.

[KEN W]

As stated above.We need to plant long day onions.Onions bulb up when we reach a certain amount of daylight.Thus short day onions would start to bulb up to soon and wind up with small bulbs.Vidalia,Texas 1015, and Maui Sweets don't grow well here.

The key to bulb size is....the larger the top,the larger the bulb will be.So with that in mind.....we need to get them in the ground as early as possible so they have large tops in July when the longest days are.

Someone said above that Walawala is a short day onion.....not true.They were developed in Washington,which is at the same latitude as we are.So Walawala is a long day onion and will grow well here.Only problem is that they don't keep for very long.

I eat most onions raw on burgers etc.So I want a sweet onion that keeps fairly well.Sets from the store keep well,but they are hot.If you get tears from peeling an onion,I don't want to eat it raw.If you do buy sets,pick out the smallest ones.They are less likely to grow a seed pod on top.Plus you get more per pound.

I plant onion plants 2 inches apart or so.When they get to be about the size of your finger,I start pulling them out to eat until the ones left are about 6-8 inches apart.

These all grow well here....

Sweet Spanish

Walawala

Super Star....a white I will not grow because white onions are very

suceptible to black rot

Alsa Craig.....huge onions if you like them really big.But it doesn't keep very well

Candy....my favorite.A good sweet onion that keeps very well.I still have some in the fridge from last August.

I plant them 2 inches apart,with the rows 8 inches or so apart.The whole section of onions is about 4 feet wide and 6 feet or so long.In other words a wide row.