Onions

I start my onion plants from seed in February under lights.  They are planted in flats or cell packs with multiple seeds per cell. Cut the plants back to 3" whenever they get up to 6" high. I harden them off starting in mid to late March by placing them outdoors for short periods on "warmer" days, slowly lengthening the time out until they are out day and night.You may find onion plants at your local garden center in the early part of the season for planting seed onions without starting them yourself.  I plant them in mid April on 3" centers in a grid pattern.  This makes it easy so when the onions reach this size you can remove every other one to use as green onions.  They are just small seedlings about 1/8" in diameter but extremely hardy.  I got a little snow and hail on my seedlings this year.  I do use a light weight row cover to protect them a little while they are setting root.  You can also use onion sets to start a crop in April.  push them into loosened soil with just the very tip sticking out.  The top is the pointed end of the onion set.  If you want to harvest some as green onions you need to dig them in 3-4" into the soil.  It is important to keep track of which sets are which as the deeper planted ones will not bulb out as well as the shallow ones, and the shallow ones will not have that nice white bulb and blanched stem as the deep ones will for green onions.  The picture above is from mid June when I thinned out the onions to leave them with a 6" spacing for the rest of the summer.  You can see that I pulled every other plant out and staggered the rows.  They are starting to bulb out at this point and not really wonderful for green onions anymore.  I have about 100 bulbs still left in the ground in this picture so you can see it doesn't take a lot of space to grow them.  Keep them weeded and watered. Onions need consistent moisture but do not like to have wet feet for long periods.  The bulbs will rot if in this condition.

 Onion plants in mid August (above) have about 50% of the tops have fallen over on their own.  At this point you should push the rest of the tops over (see below) and let them continue to die back until the tops are all brown.  At this point you will "lift" the onions out of the soil, remove most of the top by cutting it off and most of the roots the same way.  Just do not damage the onion bulb when doing this.

Onions need to cure so they store well.  Set your onions out in a single layer, planting trays work well for this, on sunny days.  Bring them in at night to a sheltered area to keep them from getting wet or dewy.  The idea is to dry them and moisture will set back this process and cause a shortened shelf life.  If done right, you can be eating your own home grown onions well into spring.

The type of onion does matter.  Short day onions are for winter season in southern areas or other parts of the world with mild winters.  Long day onions are for our Midwestern summers.  Red and white onions tend to not store as long as yellow onions (such as Sweet Spanish or Walla Walla) but are nice to use fresh and for some cold storage period into winter.  Do not store onions and apples in the same area unless you like your apples to have an onion flavor.  Yellow onions store quite well in a basement where it is cool and dark to help prevent premature sprouting.  Once they start sprouting, it is best to cut them up and freeze them for use as the middles of the onions are lost if left to sprout.  I just hang mine from a nail in the basement in a mesh bag.

If you like to use green onions in your cooking, you can start bunching onions from seed directly in the garden.  Early spring works for this.  I was a little late getting mine in the soil in June so I will have a later fall crop rather than a summer crop.

The onions pictured here look bigger than they are as they are just about 1/4" now or less.  I will not worry about thinning these but will pull the larger ones as I want to use them.  If I end up with onions more than I can use fresh,  I can wash and slice them into smaller pieces and dehydrate them.  They work great in cooking and retain a nice green color for the dishes I use them in.
Onions are a fairly carefree crop.  Keep them weeded and water during dry periods.  There are some insect and disease problems but they are minimal. Try different varieties and see what your favorites are.