Planting Our Onions in the Vegetable Garden

June 8, 2018

Planting Our Onions in the Vegetable Garden

The season’s first crops are nearly all planted in the vegetable garden.

My gardeners, Ryan and Carlos, have been very busy scattering seeds for carrots, parsnips, beets, and all kinds of leafy greens. Recently, they also planted the onion crop. Onions are among the world’s oldest cultivated plants. They are hardy, easy to grow, and can be grown in a variety of soils and climates. Our onions were started from seed in my greenhouse earlier this year and were finally ready to transplant into the outdoor garden beds.

Enjoy these photos.

: We always grow a lot of onions. The onion, Allium cepa, is the most widely cultivated species of the genus Allium. Onions should be planted in spring when temperatures are still a bit cool once they start to grow, and then warm when they begin to mature. Early planting gives the onions time to develop tops and store energy for the bulbs.

: Onions are closely related to garlic, leeks, shallots, scallions and chives.

: Onions are also categorized in two growing types: long-day and short-day. Long-day onions begin sprouting in late spring to summer when days are between 14 and 16 hours long. Short-day onions begin sprouting when days are between 10 and 12 hours in length – winter and early spring.

: Here is Ryan creating the long rows for the onion plants. Ryan uses this bed preparation rake from Johnny’s Selected Seeds to create furrows in the soil. Hard plastic tubes slide onto selected teeth of the rake to mark the rows. http://www.johnnyseeds.com/

: Ryan makes five furrowed rows in each of three onion beds – one for yellow, one for white and one for red onions.

: Next, he carefully removes the onion plants from the flats in which they were started.

: If you remember, the onions were started from seed in late January, which is about two months before the last frost in this area. The seeds were stored in the greenhouse until they were big enough to plant outdoors.

: Here are the onion plants one month after seeding. It is good to start larger onions from seed, so they can be harvested the same year. Smaller onions can be planted directly into the ground.

: Time goes fast – now the onions are ready to be transplanted. The concentric leaf bases of the developing plant will swell to form the underground edible bulb. This is a red onion plant before it is planted into the ground.

: Ryan places the plants in the furrow where they should be planted – at least four-inches away from each other. Space is precious in the garden, so proper spacing is crucial.

: We wanted the onion plant rows to look tidy and straight, so to guide the rows, Phurba uses the end of a long wooden rake to press in the soil.

: Making slight indentations across the beds is easy to do and keeps the onions in all three beds aligned with each other. Phurba lines up the pole as Carlos presses down with his foot.

: Phurba uses a dibber to make the holes for each plant right at the spot where they were positioned.

: When planting, grasp the onion plant with the root end down and push it into the soil. The plant should be dropped about one-inch deep. Onions will grow quite large if planted properly and given enough space.

: Once the plant is in the ground, Phurba firms up the soil around it. Be sure the onion roots are well covered with soil, and that the top of the plant’s neck isn’t covered too deeply. If too much of the plant is buried, the growth of the onion will be reduced and constricted.

: Here are a few already planted, with lines of onion plants still waiting. Onions grow best when the soil pH ranges between 6.0 and 6.8.

: Red onions, sometimes called purple onions, have reddish-purple skin and white flesh, tinged with red. These onions are medium to large in size and have a mild to sweet flavor, though they contain less sugar than white or yellow onions. They are often consumed raw, grilled or lightly cooked to accompany other foods.

: Here, Ryan lines up the white onions. Although the white onion makes up only five-percent of the American onion harvest, it is the all-purpose onion. It has pure white skin and sweet, mild white flesh. White onions are commonly used in sauces, pasta salads, and in Mexican and Southwestern cuisines.

: Yellow onions have strong flavors. These onions are white inside, with yellow-brown papery skins. Their rich, onion taste is often used in French onion soup. Yellow onions are higher in sulphur than its white cousins. We use these large wooden stakes from Johnny’s Seeds.

: Here are the onions the day they were planted. Onion plants generally grow from one to three feet tall and up to a one-foot spread. It is best to rotate onion crops. Last year, we planted our onions several rows down from this section of the garden.