Winter gardening with onions

With all the nice weather we have been having, it almost makes one think about planting something. But the reality is the cold weather is coming. Normally this time of the year, we have highs in the 40s and lows down in the 20s or so. A year ago, we had snow and temps in the single digits. But spring is coming, and it will be gardening time.

One crop you can plant really early is onions. I'd shoot for six weeks before the last frost.

Right where we live, there is the possibility of frost from Oct. 9 through April 23, according to the site Dave's Garden. But after May 9 through Sept. 27, there is little danger of frost, so here you can plant onions about the first to middle part of March.

Normally, I plant onion plants and sets. Onion plants are usually about 5 inches long and just a bit smaller than the diameter of a lead pencil. I plant onion plants because one can buy sweet onions in plants, but not in sets.

Onion sets are small onion bulbs from about dime size on up to quarter or half dollar size. These onion sets are either red or white or yellow. They are not sweet.

I usually buy my onion sets and plants from Morgan County Seeds. Dixondale Farms is another great place to get onion plants.

Basically draw a line from the East Coast of the U.S. to the West Coast along the southern border of Missouri and Kansas and Colorado. The states on the north side of this line will be long-day variety onions.

These onions need 14 to 16 hours of daylight in the summer to mature. On the south side of this line, one will need to plant short-day onions, which require 10 to 12 hours of daylight. If you live along this line, you can probably plant either variety and they will do reasonably well.

My goal this year is to grow my own onion plants. I ordered several different kinds of onion seeds last summer.

These were Texas Grano 1015Y, Ovation F1 and White Sweet Spanish. I'm not an onion expert by any means, so I'm not sure how they will do here in Missouri.

The Texas Grand is a 175-day onion, the Ovation F1 is 110 days, and the White Sweet Spanish is 130 days. The Texas Grand probably won't do as well as the other two simply because it is an intermediate day variety.

I'm going to sow or plant the seed in some small oblong flats, which are about 4'x6'. If memory serves me correctly, there are six of these trays in a large flat. I usually mix some seed starting mix with a little potting soil. It works better for me than pure seed starting mix. After planting, I'll cover the trays with a plastic dome until the seeds come up. After removing the plastic domes, the hardest part will be to keep the little onion plants damp, but not wet. I want to get the onion seed started by the first of the year for sure. Maybe this week if all goes well.

When it's time to plant your onion plants, there are several things to keep in mind. Almost all types of plants you start from seed and then transplant into the soil will need fertilizer from day one.

This fertilizer should have a high middle number, such as 10-20-10.

I use an even higher number on tomato plants, which has an 8-52-9 number. Use this fertilizer when transplanting.

Once the plant is established and growing, switch to a more balanced fertilizer, such as 12-12-12. But one thing I didn't know was onions need quite a bit of nitrogen. The way the information on fertilizing onions sounds, one needs to side dress the onions with nitrogen, just like corn.

If you have a single row of onions, simply make a shallow furrow along the side of the onions, scatter some nitrogen in this furrow and then cover up. It would probably be a good idea to water the nitrogen in.

According to information from Dixondale Farms, you will need to reapply this nitrogen every couple of weeks until the onion has about 12 leaves on it. I have never fertilized onions with this much nitrogen before.

One wrong old wives' tale is that you need to stomp down the tops to get them to bulb up. You don't. When the tops begin to fall over, the bulbs probably need pulled and hung up to dry. Hope this helps some as you grow onions big enough to be proud of.

Until next time.