Onion transplants

It has been a busy weekend but I promised photos of onion transplants and since that might be on your list too, I have to share these first.  I pop the whole pot of onion seedlings out of the pot and gently pull the root ball apart so I can pull the individual onions apart.

There are two ways of setting your seedlings, one way is to dig a trench about 2 inches deep the length of your planting area. Pull the soil to one side so you can push it back over the roots as you put each onion in.

The second method is to use a digging tool to pull the soil forward, set in your seedling, and let the soil fall back in the hole over the roots of the onion.  With either method you need to gently firm the soil around the roots.

If you are doing longer rows, a straight edge of some sort will help maintain the line as you go.  I like to lay out my seedlings for each row ahead of myself so I can just move down the row planting seedlings.  I just keep repeating the process until I have all the onions in that I want.  Last year I did the onions 3"x3" apart and pulled every other one as green onions to make them 6"x6" for full growth onions.  This year I spaced them 3" apart in rows that are 6" apart.  I will still take every other onion in each row out for green onions, but the row space is set ahead of time.  I ended up using more space this way, but I wanted to try a different method to see how it affects my harvest.

I ended up with 6 rows of 25 in the 8' beds.  This will be my bed for my late lettuce crop in summer.  The anticipated afternoon rains never came, so I still had to water them in.  I was pleasantly surprised this morning by perky little onions as we did get about 1" of rain overnight.