Q. I bought a package of onion sets several months ago. They aren’t getting big.
Hopefully, some of them are not dried out. Regardless, I have some onions growing in my garden now
and could use some ideas. They’re mainly purple onions.
this could be a setback for them. Onion sets are already dried so not a big deal if you didnt get them growing good and then they dried out.
When you plant transplants they will wilt for the first
couple of days. The tops fall over and then they perk right up provided the
soil was prepared properly and you are watering regularly,…daily the first
couple of days.
Make sure you planted the sets and transplants the correct depth. Sets (which are just dried down little onion bulbs) are planted about an inch deep. On transplants you will see a fairly clear distinction between the part that was growing above ground (green) and the part growing below ground (white). Plant them at the same depth they were growing before, using the color separation as a guide.
Onions first put their energy into their tops so the tops will
get big and the bottoms do not until we get the right number of hours of
darkness (some say daylight but it is really the darkness that is the trigger).
After soil preparation then I disagree with some people out there who tell you not to fertilize with nitrogen. You
need to side dress onions with nitrogen fertilizer every 30 days until the month of harvest. Make sure you water the fertilizer in generously. The size of the onion bulb is related to the size of the tops you are
growing so sidedress regularly with high nitrogen fertilizer. Once the trigger for bulbing starts there is not much you can do that will stop it.
When you see the
flower produced on one of those green leaves pull it off and don’t
let it develop unless you are using the onion flower for something culinary or decorative.
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| Remove onion flowers as soon as you see them. Dont let them get this big before you do unless you plan on using the flower for culinary purposes or decorative. It just takes energy away from bulb development. |
Harvest once the tops fall over. Wait for each one to fall
over. They will be different and fall over at different times. Let them cure
for a couple of days in the shade or in the house before you store them for any
length of time. Once the tops dry down you can cut the tops off to within a
couple of inches of the bulbs.
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| Harvest onions when the neck can no longer hold up the weight of the top and it falls over. You can harvest it earlier but it wont keep very long. Still tastes great though! |