Seeding Onions in January

It took me several years to find a method that worked well for seeding and transplanting onions. 

First, I tried my son TOG’s excellent method for starting leeks.  He seeded them in three wide rows in a 3 foot by 1 foot flat.  He looked after them and they grew well but he was chronically late in transplanting them into the garden – (too many other things to do at that time of the spring).  The leeks would get very root bound and tangled around each other and we found the best way to loosen them from each other was to use a jet of water to dislodge the soil from the roots.  

Once that was accomplished it was clear sailing – with a scissor, he would trim the roots to 1.5 inches and the tops to 5 inches resulting in a package close to the size of a Bic pen.  Then he’d use a preset dibble (sharpened broom handle with depth limiting flange) and press 4 or 5 inch deep holes in the bed while I would drop one little leek into each hole.  No back filling was needed; the rain or watering quickly back filled the loose soil around the leeks’ roots and as they grew they filled the holes and became self-blanching.

So I tried growing my onions that way.  Before transplanting into the garden, I trimmed the roots and slipped them into a fold in the bed.  It didn’t work.  They didn’t take off.  They stayed quite small.  I surmised they didn’t like their roots disturbed and bare during transplanting.

The next year I made some changes.  I still seeded them into a tight fitting flat – about 25 seeds spaced an inch apart into the cut out bottom of a milk jug.  Before transplanting them into the garden I did the usual transplanting method of slicing the root bound mix with a sharp knife to divide the onions’ roots into their one inch cubes of soil.  Then I waited the prescribed five days for them to recover from the stress of the slicing before transplanting them into the garden.  They still did poorly.  I surmised they didn’t like their roots cut or sliced, unlike leeks.

So the third year I planted each into their own small pots and didn’t disturb them until I gently slipped their root balls into the garden with as little root disturbing trauma as possible.  It worked!  I got a fine crop of winter storage onions lifted in late July.

Since then I’ve fine tuned my growing method.  Watching TOG, I tried three seeds in each pot and let whatever number that came up stay together.  That worked too but some onions weren’t quite as large as with the pairs and singles.  Also, it seemed that adding a mulch layer of chopped old maple leaves, once the soil really warmed up, worked wonders to moderate the soil moisture.

So this year on January 7^th, I seeded my Patterson Onions at two seeds per pot.  (TOG starts his in mid-February, he uses smaller paper pots).  I use one cup sized yogurt containers for pots.  

I get to use my Lovely Wife’s retired cookie sheets for flats that can hold 15 pots each. To get closer to a proper germination temperature I placed the flats up above the cupboard above the fridge in the kitchen and kept an eye on them each day to maintain moisture levels and get them immediately under the grow light as soon as seedlings started to appear.  They took 7 days to germinate.

My newly ordered seed from Johnny’s Selected Seeds arrived one week later so my Mofga Hybrid Yellow Onions are a week later than the Pattersons.  These are the two varieties that Johnny’s recommends for my latitude just north of the 49^th parallel.

Both TOG and I have been having trouble with our Patterson’s going to seed – growing seed stalks near the end of the season just before harvest.  The onions still keep well over winter but they aren’t salable since there’s a core / shaft inside each onion that grew a seed stalk.  10 years ago, TOG discovered that afternoon shade was a major culprit for toggling seed stalk growth.  However, last year he had quite a few go to seed in spite of full sun.  So there must be other influences that we haven’t discovered yet.  And I’ll try the Mofgas.

Last year I miscalculated my onion seedling needs and hurriedly grabbed some Stuttgart onion sets from the local Buckerfields feed and garden store. Those I set into pots to give them a head start and they got some roots going while the garden bed soil warmed up.  The Stuttgarts transplanted alright, grew quite well, sized up nicely and didn’t go to seed but they are more prone to fungi and diseases while growing.  They are rather overpowering in flavour and didn’t pickle as well with our bread and butter cukes.

My seeded onions will stay under the grow light for four weeks and then graduate to the south facing garage window where they’ll grow slowly in the cooler temperatures.  After that they’ll head for the greenhouse for a month or so until the soil warms enough in their bed in the garden.  That should get their roots just nicely filling their pots for easy, stress free transplanting in mid April. 

Now that I’ve discovered (been given) a new and simple temporary Bed Cover  I should be able to get them in the ground even earlier.  Last year I managed to harvest more than one pound of onions per square foot of bed space.  An eight month supply of onions stored in the garage is an easy accomplishment once one knows how to grow them.

Happy Gardening.