Tips For A Great Onion Crop.......

[boggybranch]

.....article from the Grit Newsletter folks

http://www.grit.com/Vegetables/Tips...n=GRT_ENEWS&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

 

[bootstrap]

thanks for sharing. I think I am going to order from dixondale this year.

 

[BarredBuff]

Thanks for posting!

 

[Collector]

Boggy, thanks for posting. These sound like great tips and should be lots of help when we plant our onions.

 

[lesa]

Thanks! I was surprised to see a couple of onions had made it through the winter - out in the garden. Must have missed a few!

 

[Rozzie]

I was going to plant some of my onions today. Now they are calling for a late snow tomorrow. I will have to wait until next week...

This year, I'm planting standard sets + Top Setting / Everbearing / Walking Onions (once they arrive from Shumway. I ordered late...)

I am looking forward to establishing a permanent bed of onions that will reseed themselves.

For those who are not familiar with them, this type of onion will have a cluster of small onion sets grow at the TOP of the green stems. These are edible. However, if you leave them at the top, the stem will eventually weight down and root in the soil, and grow into another clump of onions. Thus they will "walk" along the soil surface over time. A friend of mine has these in his garden. I mentioned them to my grandparents and they remembered them as "everbearing" onions. My grandmother's family had them when she was a child in the 30s/40s. I'm all about reducing costs and buying perennials, so these are going in NOW.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Nice article Boggy - thanks.

I have questions about:
#8. Spray weekly with a protective fungicide to prevent foliar diseases and rotting during storage. You won't notice there's a problem with the disease until it's too late and they start rotting after harvest.

Does this mean to spray after harvest and while in storage? What is the correct fungicide to use for this? I usually braid my onions into bunches of 6 or 8 and hang the bunches in our root cellar. I have never had a rotting problem while they are hanging but I have had some rotting if I ever stack the bunches in a pile. I guess I learn the hard way

 

[journey11]

Thanks for posting; that was very helpful, Boggy. I think I will use the pre-emergent on mine this year. Onions sure don't like weedy neighbors! Lack of weeds/good air circulation would probably prevent the need for a fungicide anyway.

Rozzie -- I have some of those Egyptian walking onions and I love them. I planted them in a sheltered corner of my flowerbed and they provide me with green onion tops most of the way through the year, except for the very dead of winter. I don't use the baby onions as much as I use the green tops really. Consequentially, I have a very large patch of these. I got mine from my grandma, who got hers from my greatgrandma. Needless to say, they go on...and on...and on!

 

[lesa]

A customer gave me some walking onions- you guys gave rave reviews and I planted them. Then the chickens got into the garden-I am sure I don't have to tell you where they dug!! Hoping the onions will pop up somewhere out there... but they won't be where I put them!!

 

[Kim_NC]

Dixondale is great. We order onion transplants from them every year. This year we've lanted 5 varieities from them - Candy (yellow), Bermuda (white), Super Star (white), Southern Belle (Red), Red Candy Apple.

Good article. We've always had good results following their planting tips. Important - you must weed or they'll be taken over before mature. And the advice to use a fungicide has proved important to us as well. We use an organic fungicide by Green Light.