3 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT GROWING ONIONS!

i used to think that here in south georgia  we had to always wait till november to plant   these guys but now i know that we don't so  we're talking about onions today now i don't   really know why but for whatever reason there  are a few crops when we do videos on those crops   they just seem to be more popular than other  things you can grow in the vegetable garden   one of those is oakrie some reason oakridge videos  always do really well and get a lot of views   and the other one is onions there are a lot of  people that are curious about how to grow onions   and specifically how to grow big onions so today  we're going to plant some onions but we're also   going to talk about kind of the keys to growing  onions when should you plant them how should you   fertilize them and what onions need to get  really big so we can get those big softball   sized onions that we all want so these are the  onions that we're going to be planting today i've   got two varieties here a white onion called carta  blanca and then a round sweet onion called cougar   and i grew these out from transplants in our  338 trays we can see here these babies look nice   they're pulling out of the tray they're ready  to go in the ground i'll talk about in a minute   the advantages of growing them in the tray versus  buying plants but i've got about eight different   varieties that i'm planting this year i started  them at different times so we're just planting a   few here and there and we don't have to plant them  all in one day but we've got two trays here that   are ready to go in the ground and we'll be getting  those in the ground today i got one row that i've   already planted and i'll show you that as well  so before we talk about the advantages of growing   your own onion plants let's talk about why we have  to transplant onions to begin with so onion seeds   are really tiny and they take longer to germinate  than most things we grow in the vegetable garden   usually you're looking anywhere from seven to  ten days in ideal conditions to get these seeds   germinated which is a lot longer than most things  we grow and if you were to just go out and direct   seed these in your garden because it takes  longer to germinate what's going to happen is   likely your weeds are gonna out compete these guys  initially and you're just gonna end up with just   this real weedy bed of onions because you wouldn't  be able to weed these guys when they're real small   and tender so you're to have some weed issues if  you just try to direct sedum to begin with the   other thing is the plant spacing so when we put  these onion plants in the ground we're going to   put them anywhere from six to eight inches apart  somewhere along the lines of there just depends on   whether you're going to thin them out a little  later or not we're going to put them about six   to eight inches apart and like i said the onion  seeds are really really small it's going to be   hard to direct seed a seed that small you know  that distance and expect to get a real good stand   so they do a lot better when we plant them as  plants like you see here now why should you grow   your own plants versus buying onion plants here in  the last year or two we have started growing our   own onion plants but for years we planted onion  plants that we bought you can buy onion plants   from several places online you can also you know  purchase them at your local feed and seed store   and buying plants is is definitely probably  easier but there are some disadvantages to it   so i'm not sure buying plants is cheaper  i think if you've got the setup here   growing your own plants is going to be cheaper  the other thing is buying plants when you buy them   you only get a certain variety that that feed  and seed store or that online vendor has when   you grow your own plants you can pick whatever  varieties that you want to grow you're not   at the mercy of whatever that onion plant grower  grew that year so you can grow a lot of different   varieties varieties that we have on our website  from seed that you can't find anywhere else   the other thing is the health of the plant and how  quick it takes off so we did some experimentation   last year and did a side by side comparing onion  plants we grew in trays versus plants we bought   and the ones that we grew in trays started growing  immediately after we put them in the ground   they grew a lot faster and they just completely  outpaced those onion plants we bought now that's   not to say you can't grow great big nice onions  from buying plants but i think you'll have even   better success with growing your own plants and  one of the reasons they do so much better when   you put them in the ground is these guys here are  in soil and we're going straight from soil to soil   when you buy plants they have been pulled out of  the ground a lot of times they trim the tops off   and so they've dried out a little bit they've  been out of the ground for at least a few weeks   and then when you get them in the mail or you go  pick them up from the feed and seed store you may   not be planting them immediately because it may be  too wet or something like that so there's going to   be some time there where those plants are stressed  and not in the ground whereas here we never stress   the plant we take them right from the seed  starting mix put them into our garden soil   and they take off and start growing really fast  really quick so which is right for you growing   your own plants or just buying plants well it just  depends on your situation if you have a a place   where you can grow out transplants if you grow  other transplants like maybe broccoli or cabbage   or stuff like that and you have a seed starting  room or seed starting space or even a greenhouse   yes growing your own plants is definitely best for  you if you don't have a place to grow transplants   or maybe you just need a few like a little  bundle maybe just 12 onion plants or so then   buying plants may be your best option we certainly  won't be using all these plants in this tray today   we're just going to be planting one row of each  variety we mainly grow them out like this just as   a kind of a quality check on our germ rates and  stuff just to make sure our seeds are good it's   just kind of our own measure of uh making sure  we're sending out quality seeds so if you have   the means to grow your own transplants grow your  own onion plants definitely you should be doing so   if you don't you buy the plants and do just  fine we grow them out in these trays right   here that we have on our site which are  338 cell trays you don't need a big cell   to grow an onion plant a lot of these cells have  more than one seed i'll give an example here so   there's two onion plants in that cell there  and you can easily just tease them apart   and plant them individually you don't want to  plant them together like that because you're   not going to make a very big onion on either of  those plants so we do kind of tease them apart   now you could grow these in a big tray that didn't  have cells in it or dividers in it and just kind   of scatter the seeds along there and then just  pluck them out of there when they're ready   you can also grow them if you got like a  container or a raised bed you can scatter   the seeds in there grow your onion plants really  thick and then pluck those plants out of there   and then stick them along the row in the garden  where you're eventually going to grow them out   the only thing about doing it in a container  or raised bed is that you're gonna have some   level of weed seeds there and like i said these  are slow to germinate and so your weeds may out   compete them a little bit in the beginning  and it may end up becoming a little weedy   you should still be able to see the onions so you  can pluck them out of there growing them in a seed   starting mix a sterile seed starting mix like we  do in these trays we don't have to worry about any   weed pressure and our plants don't have to compete  with any weeds and when they're ready to go on the   ground it's really easy to just grab them from  these trays just grab a bunch of them at a time   and stick them in the ground so we covered  the topic of why you should grow your own   transplants or maybe why you should buy your  own onion plants now i want to talk about   growing the onions themselves and the three most  common mistakes we see that cause people not to   grow big onions number one is simply you gotta  grow the right onion varieties for your area   there are three general types of onions you have  short day onions intermediate day onions and long   day onions and that distinction is made based  on when that variety starts its bulbing phase   so onions have two different growing phases they  have a vegetative phase where they're producing   all those green leaves and then when  the day length reaches a certain length   then those onions start bulbing and that  bulb starts increasing you don't get any   more vegetative growth so short day intermediate  day and long day what that means is the plants are   going to start bulbing at a different day length  for example short day onions which would grow here   in the south start bulbing when day length reaches  about 10 to 12 hours and that's going to happen   early in the year you know around january  or so i think january or february maybe   intermediate day onions are going to start  bulbing when day length reaches 12 to 14 hours   and long day onions are going to start  bulbing when day length reaches 14 to 16 hours   we have a chart on our website that shows  you basically depending on where you live   which varieties you should grow should  you be growing short day intermediate day   or long day long day onions are for those  people in the northern part of the country   intermediate day or for those people in the  middle and short day onions are for those   people down south like ourselves here in zone  8b in south georgia so you've got to make sure   the variety you grow corresponds with whether  you should be growing short day intermediate day   or long day and we have all of our varieties  separated by a short day long day or intermediate   day on the website so it makes it really easy  for you to find which ones you should be growing   if you try to grow a long day onion down here in  the south what's going to happen is you're just   going to make a bunch of vegetation you're never  going to make a bulb really because we don't ever   get to 14 to 16 hours a day length down here you  know in the summer up north their days are a lot   longer than down here now there are some areas  where if you're on the edge of the short day and   intermediate day area you could plant either or  if you're on the edge of the intermediate day long   day area you could plant either um but if you're  kind of in the middle of either of those areas you   probably just want to stick to whatever variety it  says or whatever type of onion it says you should   plant so once you determine whether you should be  planting short day onions intermediate day onions   or long day onions then you need to figure out  when you're going to plant them and we also have   this information on our site if you're growing  intermediate day or long day onions you're going   to wait until late winter early spring depending  on when that happens in your area to get those   in the ground if you live in a short day region  like we do you can plant them in the fall and do   what we call overwinter the onions now not every  person or not every short day area can do this   and i'll tell you kind of the restrictions on this  so onion plants can tolerate temps down to about   20 degrees as long as those temperatures  aren't sustained i've seen them survive   17 degrees down here but it was only 17 for an  hour or so and then it warmed up later that day so   if you don't regularly get below 20 degrees  you can over winter your onions like we do and   if you're growing short day varieties you'll  make lots bigger onions or much bigger onions   if you do overwinter them and plant them  in the fall and you know we planted them   usually we've always tried to plant them in  november early mid-november just try to get   them in the ground sometime in november i plant  them as late as december and did fine last year   i did some testing and planned them late october  like it is now today and uh and did just fine so   i would say anywhere from late october to early  december if you're going to overwinter onions   you're fine at getting them in the ground then  if you're growing your own plants you can expect   the plants to take about five maybe even six  weeks or so to be ready from when you plant   them in the trays to ready to go in the ground  so if you live an area that doesn't get too hot   you should definitely overwinter your onions if  you're in the northern range of the short day area   intermediate or long day you're going to wait till  late winter early spring to get your onions in the   ground now let's talk about reason number two why  some people may not be able to grow big onions and   that is water so onions are heavy feeders we'll  talk even more about what that means in a little   bit but one part of that being a heavy feeder  means they like a lot of water almost as much   as corn i'd say maybe even as much not even more  they need a lot of water and the more water you   give your onions the sweeter they're going to be  if you like real sweet onions make sure you give   them plenty of water so if you don't give your  onions plenty of water you're not going to grow   a lot of vegetation during that vegetative phase  and as a result you're not going to get a very   good bulb during that bulbing phase so keeping the  water to them is very very important so you want   to have some type of irrigation for your onions  so you're not just counting on mother nature to   give them all that water they're gonna need now  you could do this with an overhead sprinkler   problem with the overhead is you're gonna be  watering a lot of these spaces between the rows   you're gonna have a lot more weed pressure  it's just gonna be a little more work as far as   keeping everything clean so i like to plant my  onions on buried drip irrigation or what some   people call subsurface drip irrigation so we bury  the drip irrigation and then we plant the onions   either on top or alongside that drip tape there  just depending on if we're doing a single row or   double row i'll show you what that looks like in a  minute here's a row i planted just a few days ago   this is a variety called plethora this is a granix  or more flattened style short day sweet onion   and these guys are looking pretty good i just  did a single row of those so i just planted those   right on top of that drip tape there so the  drip tape allows us to feed them very very well   sometimes once they get up and go and  i'll let this stuff just run overnight   they can soak up the water really really good  they like it and with the drip tape we're only   putting water right there where the plants need  it we're not watering these gaps between the rows   it just helps us keep the plot cleaner we conserve  water and we have nice weed free onion plot all   right so let's start getting some of these babies  in the ground here so we've got our buried line of   drip tape here and this is only buried see there  it is right there so just a couple inches deep   and in the past we were running a small  scale market farming operation here   and i would plant these things on double road  because i was really trying to maximize the   space for trying to grow enough onions to sell  and so i wanted to plant as many as i could   in a given space so we're planting them on  double rows and i'll show you kind of what   that looks like so we plant on this side  of the tape and on this side of the tape and we just go along here and  i would initially put them   about four inches apart four to five six inches  apart and then let me plant one more so i can   kind of give you a better idea so i'd plant  them this thick on both sides here a double row   and then once kind of right before these things  started bulbing or once the bulbs got about a   quarter in diameter i would come in here and  pull every other one and we'd sell those as green   onions then we'd leave the rest of them to enlarge  and become big baseball or softball-sized onions   i'm still going to plant them thick  but i'm not going to plant them on a   double row this year this year i'm doing more  trial stuff instead of growing enough to sell   so i'm growing eight different varieties here  so i can compare them so i'm just going to plant   a single row because i don't need that many  onions this year since we're not selling any   so in this case i'm just going to plant right  on top of the tape or kind of right to the side   of the tape still going to plant them pretty close  together because we do enjoy some green onions   before these things get really big so we'll  want to come in here and pull every one of   these enjoy them as green onions so in this case  i'm just going to put them along the row like this   and plant a single row of them you can do it  however way you'd like to do it if you want to   grow a bunch of onions the double row works  great i will say with the double row it is   a little tougher to weed them once the plants get  larger a lot of times that foliage will shade out   this area in the middle a single row is a little  more easier to manage weed wise but you don't   get as many onions per square foot as you would  with a double row so do whatever works for you   and one more thing here i won't include this  is one of my three common mistakes but uh   just a little extra tip don't plant  these guys too deep you can see here we're kind of that soil block is sitting there  right above the white part of the onion don't   plant it no deeper than probably where my thumb  is right there a lot of people will plant them   deep and then pull dirt away from them later but  if you don't plant them too deep to start with you   don't really have to do that so no need to put  them way deep in the ground just kind of cover   that white portion of the plant and you'll be good  to go all right all right all right we got them   in the ground there a row of cougar and a row of  carte blanca white onions to complement his row of   plethora that we already planted went and got my  drip tape going here to give them guys some water   they were leaning over a little bit that soil was  pretty dry so we'll go ahead and give them plenty   of water to get them going now i have these on a  three foot row spacing which some people would say   is a little too wide for onions like i said we're  doing a trial here so we got five more varieties   to plant and so i just want to be able to keep it  nice and clean in here so we can really compare   these varieties to one another that's why i'm  giving them a little extra room just so i've   got plenty of room to get in there and work and  try to keep the weeds to a minimum some people   will come in here and put straw down around these  plants for weed suppression i tried that last year   wasn't a big fan of it but if you like doing  that it does work pretty well for keeping the   weeds down we'll just use our wheel hoe and a few  little hand tools and keep the weeds under control   and these things should take off as soon as we  start giving them some water here and now to   most common onion mistake number three and that  has to do with fertilization or giving them the   right amount of nutrients i mentioned earlier that  onions are heavy feeders which means they like a   lot of water they also like a lot of nutrients  and especially later on in their growth cycle   still in the vegetative phase though they like  plenty of nitrogen so we fertilize onions like   this early on we're going to give them a complete  fertilizer something like our complete organic   fertilizer i'll show you in a minute we can inject  some of our 20 20 20 through that drip some people   will use a granular 10 10 10 and till it into the  soil prior to planting but you want to give it a   balanced or complete fertilizer there with kind of  equal amounts of nitrogen phosphorus and potassium   that potassium and phosphorus is going to help  that root development initially and kind of help   those plants get up and going really well once  that happens probably about a month or so after   planting then we'll switch just to straight  nitrogen we'll give them some of our ammonium   sulfate onions like some additional sulfur so  that helps and we'll just feed them nitrogen   all the way up until the bulbing phase now  how do you know when that bulbing phase starts   well you'll start to see the ground around  your onion plant start to crack and you know   the bulbing phase has started then that's when  you want to cut off the fertilizer to the onions   don't fertilize them during that bulbing phase  so this vegetative phase is when you need to   be opportunistic in feeding those onions  maximizing that vegetation because that's   what's going to produce that big bulb in the  end so as far as this plot goes we came in here   a few weeks prior to planting and tilled in a  significant amount of good gin trash compost   which is pretty high in nutrients we put uh about  two or so tons per this thousand square foot plot   here and you can see that black stuff out there  that's that good black gold compost we put in here   and so that will feed those plants but it  takes a little while to convert over because   it is organic that's the case with any kind  of organic fertilizer it takes a little while   to break down those big organic molecules and get  them to where they can be used by the plant now   another option is to use this stuff right here our  complete organic fertilizer which is a pelleted   heme manure and you can take that and you can  tilt into the soil prior to planting put in your   planting furrow there or you can come along and  sprinkle it alongside these plants here and just   lightly cultivate it into the soil with a hoe or  something so that's an option there just know that   if you're using strictly organic methods like that  you just have to plan ahead and you're gonna have   to give this stuff a little bit of time to convert  over so the plants can absorb it if you're needing   a quick shot then you want to go with something  like this our 20 20 20 which you can inject   into this drip system or you can just dissolve  some in a bucket and pour it alongside the plants   that stuff is water soluble it's going to give it  a nice quick shot and help that growth early on   so if you want to be organic about it you can  do that just plan ahead or you can go with some   20 20 20 and give them a quick shot either way  works so just to recap here we take our three   most common onion mistakes and turn those into  positives number one make sure you plant the right   varieties for your area whether that be short day  intermediate day or long day onions and try to get   them in the ground as soon as your temperatures  will allow that's going to make bigger onions   doing it that way number two give them plenty  of water whether it's overhead or you want to   do it really effectively with the drip system  give them puppies plenty of water number three   they need plenty of nutrients feed them well  whether you do it organically or the synthetic   blend like our 20 20 20 either way works but  just make sure you give them plenty of nutrients   a complete blend initially and then switch to  just a nitrogen source after that right up until   that bulbing phase starts and i'll be sure to  keep you guys updated on this allium plot as we   finish out the planting here so i have five more  varieties of onions we're gonna be putting in here   and then we're gonna put two rows of elephant  garlic on the end so i'll keep you updated as   to the progress of that and how these varieties  are looking as they grow and we'll compare them   and kind of see the differences between all eight  short day varieties that we're planting here i'll   put some links below to all of our onion varieties  so you can go pick up the ones that are right for   you whether it be short day intermediate day long  day red onion white onion sweet onion flat onion   round onion we've got them all if you enjoyed this  video give me a big thumbs up don't forget to hit   that subscribe button if you haven't already ring  that little bell so you get notified every time we   come out the new video and if you did enjoy  this one check out these other onion videos   right here i think you'll really enjoy  those as well we'll see you next time

Channel: Hoss Tools

Views: 673,403

Keywords: Herbs in Rows, 3 Keys to Onions, Kodiak Brown Mustard

Id: aRcpbGTAIMk

Length: 25min 13sec (1513 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020