Ordering Onion Plants

Every year I order onion plants from Dixondale. Oh sure, I can start onions from seed, but it takes a long time for them to grow. And I've never quite gotten the timing down as to when I should be starting those seeds so that I end up with super large onion bulbs the following summer. Truthfully, I'm lazy about that because it's so easy to just order the plants. So this is one of my secret downfalls of being self reliant-- I buy in onion plants. 

I've always had success using Dixondale. They offer a nice onion called Texas Super Sweet that does great in my area. I haven't come upon another that grows so well in my particular area and climate. So why not stick with success. 

Last year I ordered 10 bunches, which supposedly should be 50 plants per bunch times 10 bunches = 500 onions. In reality, I end up with a lot more, almost twice as much, because the bunches are generous and contain lots of small seedlings which I nurse along in the mini greenhouses. Each bunch has about 50 hearty plants that go right out into the gardens, plus 40-50 little seedlings that I'll let grow up for a few weeks in containers. When they are big enough, they'll join the others in the garden beds. 

Last year I didn't have enough onions and ended up growing lots of green onions from seed. Not enough onions, how could that be? Well, Adam and Matt also love onions, so between them and us, we go through a lot. On top of that, fresh onions are easy to sell and trade here. 

This year I'm ordering twice as many onions. I just ordered my usual 10 bunches. In another week or two I'll order another 10. The reason for the delay is that I need to get the growing beds and mini greenhouses ready for them. I'm not prepared to handle all of them at once.  So two shipments is doable. I'll also order 10 bunches of leeks once I get all the onions planted. Then as insurance, and because we like green onions, I'll sow some onion seed too. 

By the way, I think I've already mentioned about how to double harvest leeks by cutting the stalk off at ground level and allowing the base to regrow. It works with green onions too, though they are more apt to bolt to flowering. This way I can dramatically increase my leeks and green onions without having to be growing extra beds of plants. I've learned that this method only works well in fertile soil. 

Starting Onions

"C" lives local to me and stopped me in the post office to ask about my onions. Being a total failure to being able to start his own onions, he wanted to know how I did it. Do here it goes.......

     I start onions from seed, sets, and seedlings. I diversify so that if one method temporarily fails, I have the other methods to get onions from. That might sound crazy to most gardeners, but here in the tropics, crop failures are common. By using a variety ways of doing things, I'm more apt to have steady food to put on the table. After all, my goal is to harvest food, not adhere to the "best" way of doing it. 

     Seeds --- I find that seeds are by far the slowest way to produce onions. In addition, they take a lot more care and attention. Initially I had a lot of problems trying to get seedlings successfully. I'd sow a pack of seeds and be lucky to get a dozen onion plants. I quickly saw that direct sowing out in the garden was a complete failure and waste of effort. Poor germination. Poor survival. And if the turkeys found the patch, they'd eat them all. Fencing off the turkeys wasn't going to improve the situation much, because I got very few surviving seedlings anyway. Ok--- back up---try something else. 

     Now I start the seeds in a small tray, then as they sprout I transplant them into a larger growing tray, spacing them about an inch apart to give them room. The room just makes it easier to pull them for transplanting later. They will grow in one of the mini greenhouses until they are 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick, whereupon I transplant them out into a garden bed. Why bother with this? Because sowing directly out in the garden simply doesn't work for me, so I now use the mini greenhouses to produce my own transplants. And I like the idea of growing onions from seed I sow myself. 

  

     Sets --- In the past I've been given onion sets. They are an easy, though more expensive way to grow onions. Most of the onion sets for sale are long day types, so they don't bulb here in Hawaii. But they can produce thick shanks, looking like leeks, that are juicy and delicious. Sometimes the variety is an intermediate type and I get thick shanks with a wide bulby base. That's fine too. 

     Our local Wal-Mart usually has onion sets for sale each spring. And it's not unusual for friends to gift me a bag. I've always been successful with them, especially in soil enhanced with a generous amount of compost. 

     Seedlings/transplants --- I buy seedlings from Dixondale. I've always had great success with them. I usually order 10 bunches which gives me an abundance of onions. The biggest plantlets go right out into the garden beds immediately. Anything smaller than 1/8 inch in thickness goes into a grow-on tray in the mini greenhouse to plant out once they grow bigger. I seldom have much loss using these. 

    I've talked with other gardeners who say they have lots of loss using these seedlings. I'm not entirely sure what they are doing wrong. My method: 

...remove them from the shipping box immediately.

...store them in a cool, dry, airy spot until I plant them. That means on the floor of my north facing lanai.

...plant them as soon as possible, usually within 2-3 days. 

...plant the larger ones directly into the gardens. Plant the smaller ones, less than 1/8" diameter, into growing trays in the mini greenhouses. 

...make a point to keep the soil lightly moist but not overly wet for the next week or so. 

...apply only a very light layer of mulch until the little onion plants have grown some. Don't bury them in mulch. 

Multiplier Onions Goodbye

For a while I've been fussing with multiple onions, trying to learn to grow them well enough to harvest a crop. While they have been growing for me in Hawaii, it hasn't been without its issues. 

First issue ..... Black aphids. These aphids seem to prefer these onions over any others that I have. I've tried several methods to control the aphids and have failed miserably. While I've been able to assert some control of this pest with the other onions (by harvesting early and rotating the beds), these multiples onions don't respond well to being transplanted every couple months and moved to a different location. Plus they produce (it's normal) a brown skin along the outside of the shank, which seems to be an excellent hiding spot for the aphids. The brown skin makes physically removing the aphids close to impossible. The onions quickly succumb to the aphid infestation. 

(Above, rotted onions I removed today from the bed.) 

Second major problem.....rot. The past 2 years has been very wet. While my regular onions seem to tolerate the extra rain ok, these multiplier onions do not. When a month is on the dry side, these onions perk up and grow really well and fast. But give them two weeks of rain and they start rotting. I think that if I were serious about wanting to grow them here, I'd have to put a plastic tunnel over them to keep the excess wet away from their roots.

Since regular onions grow well on my farm, I'm losing interest in these multiplier onions. Not the right variety for my location. Too much effort and attention needed to get a crop as compared to other onions. There is little advantage to my growing them since I can grow regular onions year around, they grow better and produce thicker, juicy, better tasting onions. While multiplier onions don't require propagation from seed (the propagate by division of the clump), I could produce my own onion seed if need be. 

Aphids on Onions

The garden's latest pest-du-jour actively competing for my moans & groans along with the cutworm is the black aphid attacking my onions. They've been at the garden for about two months now, going from one chive bed, then to the leeks, and next to the onions, then back again. 

(Not a great or well focused photo, but it shows how thick the black aphids are.)

At first I only saw an aphid here and there. I made a big mistake by not aggressively killing them when I first saw them. Within a couple of weeks there where massive armies of black aphids covering the plants. I find hundreds of them on one plant lined up all along the leaves. Bad news. Real bad news. 

Since this is the first time I've had to deal with these, I really wasn't sure what would work. So I brought out the safer soap spray to see if that would work. Pumping up the sprayer with a lot of pressure, the spray actually blew most of the aphids right off the plants. What still clung to the plants were dead by the next morning. But over the next few days, fresh aphids arrived. Because I had neglected to kill off the aphids when they first showed up, I had newly hatching aphids to deal with. Multiple generations of aphids.

By now I've been fighting these aphids for a couple weeks and their numbers are down to just a few new ones each day. But I'm learning......don't stop now. I will continue to check the onions, leeks, and chives every day for the coming month, and spot spray any aphids I find.

I'm happy that soap spray is successful against these aphids. Although I started out using safer soap during the worst of the outbreak, regular ol' soapy solution is successfully taking care of them now. A simple, easy, and cheap solution.....just time consuming. 

Multiplier Onions

Potato onions. Multiplier onions. Perennial onions. 

Last year one of the community garden volunteers donated a pot of what she was told was a walking onion. That one plant divided into several, then those replicated, and the next generation once again. Now there is a fairly good sized bed of these onions. 

I'm guessing that what these onions really are is a multiplier onion, rather than a walking onion. Ours have never produced a floret, although that may be because I am located in the tropics. But the plant habit seems far more like that of a multiplier than an walking. 

These have never formed root bulbs either, but the larger ones get thick bases. But that's because of being in the tropics. Many onion types require longer days of sunlight in order to initiate bulbing. 

But they surely make multiple root divisions. I'm seeing anywhere from two to a dozen new plants per one original plant. 4 seems to be the norm. 

I've decided to make a separate propagation bed for the multiplier onions, so that there won't be confusion when it comes down to harvesting onions for eating. So I took a pile of the plants and separated out the individual plantlets, cleaned the old leaves off, trimmed the roots back, trimmed the tops. 

I then planted them about six inches apart in the row, with the rows about twelve inches apart. This gives me room to apply mulch. 

All of these should transplant just fine. In a few days the outer, older leaves will yellow and die, but that's normal. Just the young emerging leaves in the center will stay green. So I'll trim the dying leaves off with a scissors in a week or so, just so I don't get mold and rot. It's been wet here recently  and everything rots quickly if I don't watch it. 

Pearl Onions

The person who gave me the bag of shallots also gave me two bags of pearl onions. Again rather than eating them, I opted to plant them. 

Will they grow here? Sure. Will they make bulb onions? Perhaps, but it depends upon what variety they are, or if they are true pearls. But they still will make something edible. With luck, they will be fantastically delicious. 

Pearl onions sold in the supermarket may or may not be the actual types called pearl onions. They very well could be just small onions that are a by product of regular onion production. So possibly these little onions aren't pearls at all. But once they grow, I'll find out. It will be a surprise! 

If they indeed turn put to be real pearl onions that make small bulbs, then I will use them for propagation for future crops. Time will tell. 

A couple of years ago I was given a bag of white onion sets that were purchased at Walmart. They looked very much like these pearl onions. Of course I planted them even though they were white Southports, a long day variety. I was curious about what would happen. They grew into big, thick shanked onion plants that looked somewhat like leeks. Their aroma and flavor was outstanding! Sweet and juicy fresh onion. I now grow Southports on purpose even though they don't bulb for me. Non-bulbing onions are still a great crop. In fact, I like them better than most green onion varieties. 

Onions

We're big eaters of onions, so I grow a lot. Most of what I grow is non-bulbing onions. They grow well here and I can produce them year around. I prefer the bulbing type for much of my cooking style, but I can only get them to bulb in spring and early summer. I haven't figured out yet how to get them to bulb at other times. 

With green onions I can use the entire plant for flavoring. Before moving here I wasn't aware that I could use the green leaves. My mother always threw them away. But I quickly learned about using the greens. 

I pulled some green onions yesterday for a bean dish I was making. I'll be using the entire plant except for the roots. 

The root area I cut off, leaving a bit of the bottom white stem. Why? I will replant them back into the garden. Most will sprout and go on to produce another green onion ready for harvesting far quicker than if I grew it from seed. Replanting the roots is another way to produce onions. Pretty neat trick. 

Rather than pulling out the entire plant when I harvest, I could have just cut it off at the soil surface. In fact, this method works better because all the roots survive and regrow, rather than having some roots die and the rest being shocked into a major setback. But these particular onions that I picked were crowding other onions, so I needed to thin them out anyway.