How to Choose Onion Varieties as Per Season

Even though you have your annuals and perennials, most Onions are biennials. Onions begin to form bulbs based on day length. If you plant the seeds close together, you can be harvesting and eating scallions for salads or even crunchy snacking within eight to 10 weeks. If your goal is to grow your onions as large as possible, they should be planted 2 to 3 inches apart. Pulling every other one works well; you get scallions sooner and larger onions later. It's also important to note that onions are biennials.

Here's a brief tutorial based on The Spruce, breaking down the differences in the way plants behave season to season:

Annuals require annual planting, as they complete their entire life cycle in a single year, going from seed to plant to flower and back to seed, then dying off.

Perennials go from seed to seed in one season but don't die at the end; however, sometimes colder climates make them behave like annuals and they die. Just as often, some annuals like tomatoes and snapdragons "volunteer" to pop up the following year.

Biennials are deemed short-lived perennials, typically taking two growing seasons to complete their life cycle. In the first growing season, plants produce only foliage. In the second, they produce flowers and set seed, often early in the season.

Rodale's Organic Life notes other interesting tidbits:

You can cut the tops of chives in season to encourage production, and dig up portion of the roots to keep indoors for winter harvest. You can also chop and freeze them, and they're almost as good as fresh.

Keep your garden cleared of weeds and mulch (or even lengths of folded aluminum foil) around plants to discourage pests like thrips, aphids, carrot flies and Japanese beetles.

When purchasing onion varieties, whether they're sets or seeds, read the label to determine whether you're buying sweet or hot, as well as the daylight requirements.

Article Source: mercola.com

 

How to Choose the Right Onion Varieties for Your Location

At the risk of making onion-growing seem complicated (it isn't) remember that the more information you start with, the greater your chances that your first growing season will be a whopping success story rather than ho-hum. That brings us to another three categories onions fall into:

Long-day onions, covers all of Oregon, Nebraska and Pennsylvania and cuts through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. These form bulbs with 14 to 16 hours of daylight, usually in zone 6 and colder regions of the north, and are planted in late winter and early spring.

Intermediate-day onions hit a wide swath, taking in the top half of California and Texas, and cut through Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. They form bulbs with 12 to 14 hours of sunlight and grow best in zones 5 and 6. They're also planted in the fall where winters are mild and early spring in northern regions.

Short-day onions are the bottom quarter of the states in a semi-circle, so every one of the southern states — generally zone 7 or warmer — fall into this category. They form bulbs within 10 or 12 hours of daylight, require mild winters and when planted in the fall, mature in late spring. In the north, bulbs are smaller.

According to Marshall, flavor and pungency are often what determines the type of onion to look for. Sweet, white onions are long-day varieties while strong-flavored yellow onions fall into the intermediate or short-day categories. When planting, select an area in full sun so your onions won't be shaded by other plants. As far as soil type, it should be well-drained and loose, because compacted soil restricts bulb development. Plant in well-drained highly organic soil.

Reducing the amount of tilling you do and avoiding synthetic fertilizers and nitrogen will help increase the soil's organic matter naturally. Rotating your onions with other crops regularly also reduces the loss of soil nutrients. The minerals and micronutrients already present in your soil negate the insistence that chemicals, including herbicides, are needed to grow healthy crops, though adding compost is universally beneficial.

Article Source: mercola.com