I use to think growing onions was a waste of time but I ’ve deepen my mind . A home grown onion is honest than a store bribe one that is really old . There are a couple of agency to grow onions . Go to your glasshouse and get ‘ sets ’ which are petty onion bulb and just implant them concord to instructions . But what if they do n’t have a finicky miscellanea you want to grow this time of year ? Then you need to start them from seeds .
What type of onion should we produce here in Santa Fe ? There are three type of onions , each one does good in sure parts of the country . Both inadequate day and solar day neutral onions ( sometimes call intermediate onion plant ) will act upon here in Santa Fe ( and of those two , day indifferent do best but you may develop poor daytime as well).Long mean solar day willNOThave enough day hours to work here and the onions will be puny . So when snitch for onions , be certain to take if these areshort day or day neutraltypes and if you are patronise online , read the verbal description - it should say what case it is . Short day need 10 - 12 hours of day and day neutral need 12 - 14 hours of daytime . All can be planted in fall or early spring but not in the heart of summertime .
GROWING FROM SEEDS : Next if starting from seed , you should begin now or even originally ( next year - but you’re able to begin now too ) . In the top pictures are some Cippolini Italian Allium cepa that I could not find in sets so I started them last month from seminal fluid . Now I am not quite ready to institute them out , and their tops were mother tall so I interpret it ’s perfectly fine to trim off the little skinny meridian . They will proceed to raise . I used the cutting on my scrambled eggs in the break of the day . Later this calendar month I will separate each one and plant them out in the garden . Those spindly little unripened tops will raise out to be beautiful onions . I had a bumper craw of onion plant this last season .
If you conceive growing onions from seed instead of sets might turn out smallish , then look again . These reddened onion from Italy turn out fantastic and I reap them last fall and they are still good .
GROWING FROM SETS : Now if you prefer to buy sets instead , implant each bulb 1 inch late with the round part of the electric-light bulb face up down in a well composted seam , 4 inches apart in full sun . Water passably . For spring planting , plant bulb determine now .
HARVESTING ONIONS : When the necks become soft and the tops fall down , block off lachrymation and when 50 % of the green summit croak back , the full size onions will be ready to reap . If the electric-light bulb is poke out of the soil , that ’s ok . crop before it freezes . Do not clean off the grease or cut off the tops until you bring around the onions . cure is the cognitive operation of letting the outer skins indurate off and is necessary for them to lay in unless you are using them right away . Let dry in a protect area like under a porch or in a shady area for about a week and then clean off the stain and trim off the tops . Store inside in a dark area like where you store potatoes .
