Guide for Growing Onions at Home

If you ever find yourself in the kitchen wondering what to dream up for dinner, you know how often onions play at least a supporting role in the final presentation. Chopped in salads, sautéed with bell peppers or emanating their savory essence in soups and casseroles, the versatility of onions makes cooking less of a chore and more of an adventure.

But that could also be said of growing onions, whether you want to grow sweet onions, red onions, leeks, shallots, chives or scallions (aka green onions). Because they're a cool-weather crop, they can be sown indoors in early spring or planted outdoors and covered with about a quarter inch of soil. It's amazing how quickly they sprout; you should see their green sprouts emerging from the ground in seven to 10 days.

Onions, says master gardener Brandon Marshall, can be grown from seed, sets or transplants. Here's an interesting tip: Round onion sets will produce a flattened onion, while a tear-shaped or elongated onion produce a round onion, Marshall says. Ironically, large sets grow green onions while the smaller ones are left in the ground to form bulbs. Rodale's Organic Life explains the differences:

Transplants are pencil-sized seedlings started in the current growing season. They're sold in bunches, usually through nurseries and mail order. They form bulbs quickly — 65 days or so — but are more susceptible to disease, and the cultivars are limited.

These should go into the ground four to six weeks before the last hard freeze of the spring (which even for veterans can be difficult to determine). Try mounding up loose soil and inserting no more than an inch of the bulb itself, which may leave several more inches above the ground.

Sets, with an even more limited list of available cultivars, are dry, immature bulbs grown the year before. They're easier to plant, earliest to harvest and least prone to disease. The downside is a tendency to bolt, i.e., flower prematurely. A pound of onion sets produces about 50 feet in a row.

Onion sets are often identified only as white or yellow rather than a specific cultivar name, which makes variety identification a bit of a mystery unless you know what they are and where they came from. Half-inch-long bulb sets are least likely to bolt. Once an onion bolts or flowers, use it first and as soon as possible, because the green flower stalk that emerges through the center of the bulb prevents storage for more than a week or two.

 Seeds usually have the widest variety availability; however, the growing time, obviously, increases to about four months to maturity, so especially in the coldest growing zones, you can start plants indoors under grow lights or cold frames (in which case they can be planted even earlier) to get the most out of your season.

When the seedlings are 2 or 3 inches tall, you can begin moving them to the transplanting stage by first hardening them off — getting them used to outdoor temperatures — by exposing them on a back porch or otherwise "in between" area, gradually.

Article Source: mercola.com

 

Planting and Harvesting Guidelines for Garlic

Garlic is planted in the fall and harvested the following summer. The featured video might confuse you if you live in the U.S. or Europe, because it mentions planting in what we would consider summer months and harvesting in the middle of winter. This is because the film is based in Australia, where the seasons are transposed, and the shortest day of the year is June 21.



Here are some general planting guidelines to consider:

For the biggest bulbs, plant your cloves in the fall after the first frost. If you don't mind smaller bulbs, you can also plant them in late winter, once the soil has thawed

Select a sunny spot in your garden and use well-draining fertile soil with a neutral pH (6.5 to 7.0 is best). Loosen the soil at least 1 foot deep and mix in a 1-inch layer of organic compost. If your soil is too acidic, add in a small amount of wood ash

Right before planting, select a fresh, healthy bulb and break free the individual cloves. With the papery skin still intact, soak the clove in water with a tablespoon of baking soda and a tablespoon of liquid seaweed for two hours. Soaking is optional, but it helps prevent fungal disease and encourages healthy growth

Poke a hole, about 3 to 4 inches deep, and place the clove in the hole, pointed end up. Space each clove about 6 to 8 inches apart and cover with soil

Cover the plantings with 3 to 8 inches of mulch or hay

That's all there's to it! What could be easier? In four to six weeks, you'll start seeing shoots poking through the mulch and your garlic will be ready for harvest in early to midsummer, once the soil is dry and one-third of the leaves have withered and turned pale. To harvest, carefully loosen the soil with a digging fork, then pull up the plant. The bulbs can bruise easily when first taken out of the ground, so treat them gently.

Place the entire plant, with bulbs attached, in a warm, dry, airy spot for about one week. At that point, brush off any stuck-on soil from the bulbs, but leave on the papery outer layer, and snip the roots, leaving about one-half inch. Wait one more week, then clip off the stems. If you planted a softneck variety, you can now go ahead and braid them together if you like.

Pest and Disease Control

Garlic has few serious adversaries, but you still need to keep an eye out for potential threats that might ruin your crop, such as:

Onion thrips, which can be identified by the pale grooves they create in the plant's leaves. Fortunately, it has many natural predators. Thrips thrive in weedy areas, so mowing and weeding around the garlic plants will also discourage them. Should you find them, place some sticky traps next to the plant. A more serious infestation can be treated using a biological pesticide containing spinosad.

Onion root maggots can become a problem if you plant onion family crops in the same place over multiple seasons, so it's best to rotate your plantings. Diatomaceous earth can be sprinkled around the plant in late spring, which is when the females lay most of their eggs

Root rot diseases such as fusarium are preventable by making sure the soil drains well, and by using caution during weeding to avoid damaging the roots of the plant

Article Source: mercola.com