Planting Onions

I transplanted my winter storage onions into their 50 square foot bed this week.  I seeded two varieties: Patterson F1 on January 7^th and my later arriving, Talon F1 on Jan 15^th -- both from Johnny’s Seeds.  Their germination rate was 73% and 80% respectively.  I seeded two seeds in each one cup yogurt container.  That resulted in 66 Pattersons in 39 pots and 24 Talons in 14 pots. 

 

The onion seedlings were under the grow lights for 5 and 4 weeks and then hit the greenhouse (unheated) for the balance.  We experienced no cold snaps during that time and I was ready to bring them into the garage on short notice if a bad frost was headed our way.

The goal was to have them just filling their pots by the time they were set out into their bed.

The bed had been a chicken run bed up until February and so there was no need to beef up the soil with any feed or seed meals for nitrogen.  I sprinkled 1.5 lbs of Rock Phosphate and 1.25 lbs of Lime over the surface of the bed and tilled it up with my little Mantis tiller.

I raked the tilled bed flat with the flat side of my bow rake.  I need a flat bed surface rather than a domed one – I find the watering (with a wand) works better in the summer with less run off and erosion using flat beds.  With my Row Marker I marked rows across the bed one foot apart.  Then I marked lines down the length of the bed 8 inches apart for my onion spacing within the rows.

The pairs of onions were just root bound enough to hold the root ball together while transplanting.  The single onions were just a bit too loose so I had to be more careful transplanting those.  I have discovered they don’t like their roots disturbed. Seeding Onions In January  Once they were all transplanted I watered them in with two gallons of mixed fish fertilizer.

We still have two more weeks before our last frost (technically) so I quickly covered them with one of my new fencing wire bed covers Bed Covers.  I drove the small stakes into the edge of the bed and arched the six foot long fencing wire pieces across the bed between the stakes.  

I covered the arched wire pieces with a 7-foot wide piece of clear plastic and held that down on its edges with good sized rocks.  The bed cover should increase the soil temperature by a couple of degrees as well as shield the onions from any stray frost.  

There’s little left to do but the occasional weeding and watering.  Once the soil really warms up in late May I’ll mulch with old maple leaves to suppress weeds and keep the roots evenly moist.  Harvest is expected sometime in late July.  

Currently, we’re still eating our crop of winter storage onions from last year.  That’s more than an eight month supply of organic onions.

Happy Gardening.