How to Plant Onions
Want to learn how to plant onions? Are you fearful of not knowing where and how to start?
Well, learning how to plant onions doesn’t have to be something that you need to fear or shy away from just because you are unsure of how to plant onions.
Understand which type of onions would be best for your location
Although most would inform you that growing onions can be done in any area throughout the winter season, location is still most important to a lot of gardeners.
As such, when you want to learn how to plant onions, a crucial thing to take note of is where you stay.
Do you live in the South or the North? For the former, long-day onions would be a good choice to plant. Typically this would need about sixteen (16) hours of sun each day.
For those who live in the north, it would be best to use those short-day onion types that require twelve hours of sun to grow.
Get to know more about the types of onions you would prefer to use
As we mentioned earlier, there are long-day and short-day onions. Actually, you would find three types of onion crops.
The short day types also called the early season, can be homegrown from the months of February to May. This is usually used in most tropical and subtropical locations.
Onion varieties that fall into this type include the Hunter River White, the Hunter River Red, the Early Barletta, and the Gladalan.
The second type is known as the midseason or intermediate. Early to midwinter are the best times to sow these types. Such varieties include the Sweet Red onions.
The third type of onion is called the long day or late maturing crop. These are best sown in late winter to the early spring season.
Included in this type are the Creamgold (or Pukekhoe), the Spanish Red, and the Mild Red Odourless.
You can choose indoor or outdoor planting to grow your crops.
Around eight (8) to twelve (12) weeks before the last cold season or the last frost, plant your seeds in pots indoors.
Use four seeds for each pot. If you opt to plant the seeds outdoors, plant them in fertile ground about a half inch deep in the ground and an inch apart from each other.
Space your seedlings well.
It is crucial to space your crops while they grow. Not too near and not too far apart. Basically, a foot apart is all right when you have four seeds in one pot.
Some prefer spacing them four inches apart. This is also good for the seedlings. Whatever your preference, be sure that you feed them well with fertilizers and ample sunlight.
Brush away a little soil from your seedlings from time to time.
Brushing away a little soil every now and then from your onion crops is essential for their growth and development.
That’s one of the secrets to learning how to plant onions in the best manner possible. You need to expose the top of the onion bulbs in order to help them mature.
So, now, you have a working knowledge of how to plant onions.
The thing to be concerned about right now is for you to start applying these steps so that you can ensure their healthy growth and harvest these crops during maturity.
