Onions
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Vegetable Gardening: Growing OnionsWhat cook can do without onions? Their versatility and variety insures onions remain at the top the the culinary world's vegetable list. (Remember Merle Streep, as Julia Childs, chopping tons of onions in "Julia, Julia"?)
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Sweet and mild onions like the Vidalia and red onions are added to salads. The more pungent yellow and white varieties provide body and flavor to meats and stews.
Choosing Onion Variety for Your Vegetable Garden
Onions are very sensitive to the daylight hours your garden receives. The length of light signals the bulbing to begin. Therefore, you should choose a variety that is adapted to not only your climate, but to your specific latitude.
- Short-day Onions: These usually sweet onions start forming bulbs when days last 10-12 hours. Gardeners in the deep south and south-west grow these varieties through the winter or plant in early spring.
- Intermediate-day Onions: Bulbing on these usually more pungent onions starts when days last 12-14 hours. These varieties do well through the middle of the country.
- Long-day Onions: These onion varieties require 14-16 daylight hours to begin forming bulbs. They grow best in more northern regions and are the most pungent and dense.
Growing and Fertilizing Onions With Black Castings™ and VermaPlex®
Onions, usually planted in row gardens or beds, also do well in container gardens. Self-watering containers or drip hoses provide a constant moisture supply, resulting in sweeter onions.
Planting onions from seeds: Growing onions from seeds is challenging and is usually done in Zones 8-9 where they are seeded in fall and grown in winter.
Growing Onions from Sets and Seedlings: Start your onions from sets or seedlings and get a six-week heat start, avoiding the biggest problem with growing onions - bolting.
Planting onions from seeds: Growing onions from seeds is challenging and is usually done in Zones 8-9 where they are seeded in fall and grown in winter.
- Add Black Castings™ to your garden soil at a rate of 20 pounds per 1000 square feet and rake in. Add 2-4 cups to your container and mix in well with the potting soil mix.
- Sprinkle and inch of the organic worm castings on the top of the potting soil, row, or garden bed, and sow seeds.
- Cover seeds lightly and spritz with the VermaPlex® /water mix at 40 parts water to 1 part VermaPlex®. Keep soil moist until onion seeds sprout.
- Foliar feed or drench with VermaPlex®/water mix 2-3 weeks after emergence and again when bulb starts forming using a 20 parts water to 1 part VermaPlex® mix.
- Keep young seedlings from becoming crowded by weeds.
Growing Onions from Sets and Seedlings: Start your onions from sets or seedlings and get a six-week heat start, avoiding the biggest problem with growing onions - bolting.
- Follow the above described fertilizing regime, using Black Castings™ and VermaPlex®.