Onion question

[Greenthumb18]

Great onions jlmann they look nice!! Looks like you'll be harvesting them soon.

 

[smom1976]

so how does one know when the onion is bulbing? and how far down to remove soil.?

 

[digitS']

I am curious about the success gardeners in the South have with Walla Walla.

Steve

 

[jlmann]

"Bulbing" depends on where you are at and the type of onion. Around here it usually happens around mid-june to early july. I usually take enough soil off so I can see where the bulb curves under to where the roots are.( If that makes any sense at all)

 

[Purple Strawberry]

Now I heard you need to loosen the soil around ALL root plants to let them get their full potential size?! I did it with my radishes, and I'm doing it with my carrots. I would assume the same for onions. (I'm starting mine from seed though.)

Please explain all the moving dirt away from the carrots and radishes thing . I have both growing right now.

 

[vfem]

It's not 'moving' dirt so much as loosening it. I use a little hand rakes and just gently rub back and forth so the top layer of crushy on the dirt falls apart. I'm not digging or turning anything.

Now I found this on one of the college agricultural webpages. I just don't remember which one. I totally forgot to bookmark the page :/

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

So is that what I need to do with my onions? They are whites, Texas 1015, and purples. Supposed to be big but they are just now starting to show a bulb yet they are trying to go to seed... do I actually dig down and pull the dirt completely off them down until the bulb starts the downward curve?

 

[Reinbeau]

I guess I'm always 'loosening' the soil because I use a wire hand-held cultivator to weed between plants. I've never heard anything about loosening soil to get larger veggies, and I don't like to have the tops of carrots and beets exposed, they tend to either turn green or get sun scald (in the case of beets). My soil is very sandy loam, though, not much clay at all, especially in the raised beds.

I planted 100 Copra onion plants two days ago, I grew them last year, they're a great keeper onion.

 

[jlmann]

When I pull the soil out from around my onions, I pull enough off so that it looks like the onions are just setting on top of the ground. I do this after they have established a good root system so they don't fall over. With the very heavy red clay we have here it is the only way to get onions to grow big. Once they have a good root system they really direct most of their energy to making the bulb and the clay really seems to restrict bulb growth. Potatoes don't do well here either for the same reason. I'm sure a lot of people that have sandy, generally loose soils probably don't need to worry about it as much , but it might be worth trying on a few - just to see how it works. I'll try to post some pictrues later on of how mine look after I pull back the soil. It might be a while though.

I also pull any onions that go to seed since they don't seem to do much bulb wise once they start.