onions – Grow All I Can

July 31, 2021

2021: Onions, Part 3 : Harvesting

July 22, 2021: So I picked a few onions today…

I wish I could say that I just threw these in the ground and never gave them another thought-but that would be a lie. I weeded and fertilized religiously, covered them with a sheet of plywood when a hailstorm threatened, and checked them every morning for signs of bugs, disease or failure to thrive. For almost six months I babied them. I was onion-obsessed. Now it’s harvest time and they’re fabulous and I can’t believe how stupid I am.

For some reason I was under the impression that Ailsa Craig was a good storage onion. It is not! I repeat, it is not! The storage potential is less than three months. My dreams of a midwinter root cellar overflowing with onions are dashed.

I’m going to go through the curing process anyway. Three months is better than nothing. I guess I’ll be freezing the rest. Or drying. I’ve never done that but now would be a great time to try, I think.

Anyway, I’m going to let them cure in the sun for a few days and then I’ll cut away the leaves and the roots and weigh them. I’m hoping for about fifty pounds.

July 29, 2021: So I let them dry in the sun for a week, and this is what they look like now. I can’t leave them outside any longer because rain is in the forecast for the next week or so. I’ve got to clean them up and get them in the house.

And here they are! I removed the leaves and roots and weighed them and now I have a horrendous headache from onion fume inhalation. It was worth it, though. I was hoping for fifty pounds, but I got eighty! Woo Hoo!

The onions in the basket will be taken into the basement and spread out on a table to (hopefully!) dry out a little more. The ones sitting on the deck are a little soft in spots so I’m going to cook those right away.

While they’re cooking I’m going to start planning next year’s onion crop-this time I’ll make sure it’s one with good storage potential.

July 13, 2021

Sweet Potatoes, Onions and Beans, Oh My!

So Bed #5 was only supposed to be occupied by sweet potatoes and pole beans this summer, but it was called upon during the onion emergency to support and sustain the extras that didn’t fit in Bed #2. And it did an admirable job. But now things are getting a little crowded. I’m going to pull these onions soon, like by dinnertime, even though they’re not fully mature. My husband wants french onion soup, and it seems silly to go out and buy the main ingredient when I have 150 or so of them in my yard. Besides, the sweet potatoes need room to grow.

I also put some of the extra onions in Bed #6, the salad bed. If I had ever doubted the importance of full sun in onion growing, I don’t anymore. Bed #6 gets part sun, at best, and the onions grown there were puny.

tiny onions — onions grown in part sun (Bed 6)

large onion — onions grown in part sun (Bed 6)

The onion on the right, after removing the leaves and roots, weighed in at nine ounces, while the onions on the left, untrimmed, barely registered on the scale. The salad bed, while suitable for leafy greens that like a little afternoon shade, is no place for onions.

May 20, 2021June 1, 2021

2021: Onions, Part 2: Growing

So the plan was to get the onions in the ground by April 1. That didn’t happen. It was cold. It was damp. I think we even had a few snow flurries that morning. I wound up planting them on the 5th. And the 6th. And the 8th and 9th. Apparently I had grossly underestimated the number of onion plants I had, and grossly overestimated the number I could fit in a 4 foot by 8 foot bed. When I was finally finished, there were onions in the onion bed, onions in the salad bed, onions in the bean bed and in containers with the flowers. I thought I had about 130 onion plants, but I think the final count was closer to 200. I planted them on 5 inch centers to give them plenty of room to grow. The beds had been amended with compost and organic fertilizer a few weeks before planting. This is what the onion bed looked like on May 10th, about a month after transplanting.

Ailsa Craig onions one month after transplanting — Ailsa Craig onions about a month after transplanting

This is what the onion bed looked like on May 31, almost 2 months after transplanting.

Ailsa Craig onions 2 months after transplanting

They’re getting quite big, but I don’t think the bulbing process has begun yet, at least I hope not. Each one has seven or eight leaves. If possible I’d like them to add a leaf or two before the onions start forming. As a long day variety, the bulbs should start forming when the day length reaches 14 to 16 hours. We’re at about 15 hours now, and the longest day of the year is only three weeks away, so something should start happening soon (if it hasn’t already)!

April 11, 2021May 6, 2021

2021: Onions, Part 1: The Plan

Last year’s onion harvest was a disappointment. Only about 16 pounds. Not sure exactly what went wrong, but I do remember they weren’t as substantial as I would have liked when I put them in the ground in April. Probably because I didn’t fertilize them at all in the 8 weeks they spent under the grow lights. Those little jiffy pellets are swell, but they aren’t meant to provide a seedling (onion or otherwise) with all it needs to grow big and strong. A little fish emulsion, I think, would have gone a long way. A better start would have led to a better finish.

I’m doing all I can to make this year’s harvest better. Most importantly, I chose the right variety: Ailsa Craig Exhibition (Johnny’s Selected Seeds, purchased in the fall of 2020) a long-day variety known for producing big bulbs. I started them February 5th, in jiffy pots, under grow lights. I’ve already fertilized them twice: once on March 3, and once on March 17. I used a general purpose organic fertilizer at half strength. They seemed to like it. Some of them are a foot tall! Today I cut them back because it’s supposed to make them stronger and stouter. I must confess I was a nervous wreck doing it, because if I kill them now I won’t have time to start more. Yikes!

They seem to have survived.

Next, I have to acclimate them to outdoor conditions, but first I’m going to give them a few days to get over the shock of being cut in half. Reasonable, right?

So I’ll spend March 22 through 31 hardening them off and April 1 is transplant day. The bed’s been prepared with compost and a good, granular organic fertilizer (applied according to manufacturer’s instructions!). Onions have short, stubby roots, so even though they’re all growing close together, they’ll be easy to separate. I’m going to plant them on 5 inch centers to give them room to grow. At that rate, I should have room for about 140 of them in my 4 foot by 8 foot bed, but I don’t think I have that many.

Once they’re in the ground I just have to keep them weeded and watered and fertilized. Hopefully by June or July I’ll be rewarded with a bumper crop.