How to Plant Onion Transplants & Seeds, Spacing Strategies, Soil Set-Up, Fertilizing, & Watering

[Music] Welcome to The Rusted Garden Homestead today's video is all about different ways to plant onions I'm going to talk about strategies I'll show you how to plant seeds too but basically proceeds same way that I drop into transplants that's the spacing you would put for a seed plant to seed about a quarter inch deep it's up to you I like to start my onions in containers this is a shoe box I overseed the area just with a pack of on with a yeah with a pack of onion seeds into a starting mix keep it well watered fed and you're going to get these beautiful transplants you just pop them out kind of Wiggle them apart you put them right into the ground I'll show you how to do that you can also buy Flats like this this is a beautiful tray one onion per tray there's 128 in here and they have these beautiful root systems I'll show you how to put those in the ground both of the onions are going to grow the same way a couple things to know about onions you have short day onions medium day or intermediate day onions or long day onions and it's all based on where you live and how long your days are how much sunlight you're getting 8-10 hours 10 to 12 hours or 12 or more hours so if you look up onion zones different than your gardening zone you can see what type of onion to buy and it's important because you don't want to grow short day onions if you're in a long day onion growing area so just look that up when planting some people want to plant say maybe all hundred of these onions and another 50 or 70 right there all in one you know space want to harvest them all at the same time store them that's not what I do if you want to do that that's perfectly fine and when you're growing for them all to get to the same size Harvest it once you're going to want more spacing these are I don't know three inches apart maybe four inches apart so that you have enough space for the full let me just pop that one out let me put it right back in the ground real quick we have a full space for the onion to develop so the spacing is going to be based on how you want to grow for instance this is pretty good spacing to get a nice size onion how I would Harvest them is I would just take every other onion and focus on the word Harvest I don't want to have 200 onions at the end of the growing period I want to use these throughout the weeks and months I might take some you know a couple weeks from now when they're smaller so I like to plant them a little bit more closely together this is a setup you know maybe three inches in between both ways where you could let them be the onions are going to get to size if you're growing larger onions maybe four inch spacing either way let's go over to that side the onions in this space are planted much more closely together than the onions over here so these I could kind of let go get to a mature size maybe Harvest every other but this setup you know maybe an inch inch and a half between onions is really set up for me to harvest these over the entire growing period so I will definitely be coming out here probably in a month five weeks or so and I might take this one out use it in a stir fry or use it with scrambled eggs as they get a little bit bigger I may be using them for other kind of meals but I would be taking them out every other onion going both ways and that's going to open up a big space to let this onion and this onion fully mature because I would be removing this one in this one those two would be gone that leaves enough space so I get to enjoy the onions over later May June July before I harvest them all and it's just a good way to use onions because I don't know anybody who wants you know to have 150 at once it's okay if you are truly on a homestead you're storing onions you want a lot of them you know for the winter period but I want to be enjoying these over the late spring early summer so that's just a couple strategies on how you can plant them and again same thing you would just do just a little finger hole drop in the seed close it up and you could do them closely together like this Harvest every other space them out like this or a little bit more if you want mature onions so the seeds are going to be planted the same ways I'm going to show you in a second let's go back to this side one tip which is really important today is really hot it's 85 degrees so I'll be popping these out and putting them right into the ground when I get to these I kind of just reach in break out a chunk and I am breaking them up like this onions are pretty much indestructible and you can see that I've got these beautiful transplants to go into the ground let me make sure I'm in the camera however if I let these sit like this for even five minutes in this hot sun it's going to dry out and damage the roots so you can drop these in water or just make sure you move really quickly and get them into the ground let me put these right under there keep them protected we're going to start in this space and let me get rid of the tray again if we were doing seeds and we were spacing out more for mature fully mature onions maybe something like that three or four inches apart quarter inch deep and you would just drop a single onion seed in cover it over these transplants I like this this is actually about 128 plants pop them out these are really strong these are plants that don't mind having their Roots Disturbed loosen it up I'm just trying to put this into place it won't be in the way and then I'm just moving some soil out of the way just a little bit over the onion that's where the onions get a bulb you want really loose soil after I show you how to plant these let's move it back stick with the plan after I show you how to plant these I'll show you how to set up the soil and I would just work my way across popping out an onion loosening up the roots drop it in like that surround it lightly press it in let's just do one more pop it out loosen it up you don't want to go really you know deep like up here just about right there in this nice loose soil the onions are going to do great and I would just go through and fill in the rest of the onions right here with these you're going to want to drop these in water you can just pull them out same thing like you can see the nice little onion forming right there these are red onions they're going to go in a different space I'm going to put these in a space that I show you how to set up just keep the roots nice and moist after I'm done setting it up we'll talk about feeding and watering these and keeping them intact we're going to use any organic granular fertilizer where NP and K is represented and we get a heavily just scattered across the top here to this I'm going to add about an inch or two inches of compost and then I'm going to loosen up the soil heavily drop in the organic granular that will slowly feed over time after they're in I said earlier intact I meant kept keep them alive and thriving to keep them alive we want to water them in with a water soluble fertilizer and we really want to water these every other day for a good seven days to 14 days until they're established and that will really make sure they take hold and they're going to do wonderfully well all right let me throw in the compost we'll loosen up this space if you don't have a lot of compost you could use a bag product you could use just the kind of like raised bed soil not full of nutrients but it helps kind of loosen up the soil the organic granular fertilizer that you put down will help feed the plants and we're going to give it some water-soluble fertilizer so we're just spreading it across and the whole idea is nice and loose go through loosen up the soil you see how quickly and easy it's to do what it is to do we're going to just mix everything together incorporate the organic granular through there and then smooth it over and then we're going to plant up those smaller onions and that's just going to be a matter of putting in a hole just like that dropping them in and pinching it over it's real easy to do but the key is to water these if not every day every other day for that 7 to 14 days because you have to really keep these moist in this Outdoors where the sun is beating down on them this top inch of soil is going to dry out quickly and the roots are only in that top inch they haven't grown large enough to go down deeper to where the water is so you have to make sure you're adding water to that top inch or two regularly for that two-week period all right let's get to planting we'll start in the middle here so you can see how I do it and I'm keeping these protected they should really be in some water nice root system first one finger hole I'm not dropping this to the bottom like I'm making a hole like this deep we're just going to put the onion right to there I want the roots to drop down but I'm holding the onion up higher and I'm just squeezing around it and we could do every one inch or so if you get a harvest every other onion just like that if you wanted to just grow these to larger size maybe you space them out like that but again the trick is nice loose soil the hole is that deep and I'm just dropping in let me get it to the right place dropping it in so the roots go down but the Little Onion bulb is staying up top there and then pinch it in and that's what I would do all the way across making sure I don't let these dry out while they're waiting to get into the ground let me plant this up and then I'll show you how I water it in with a water-soluble fertilizer any water-soluble fertilizer Works something organic is best I recommend agrothrive it's a nice balanced NP and K and you can find that in the video description I am affiliated with them I wanted to cover one more thing before we water them a lot of people say cut this down half the size and that would be because it has a smaller root system it's hot out and it doesn't need or can't support all this green growth and that's true but there's really no need to cut your plants if you're watering these every other day you know if the temperatures are warm if it's in the 60s you could probably go every skip two days in between you know every third day or something like that you want to make sure for that and I'm going to stress again because this is where people make the biggest mistake for that 10 to 14 days you're really watering that top inch or two because the root system is only right there down the line when they get deeper into the ground you can you know maybe rely on rain water or watering once or twice a week or something like that if you don't cut these if they don't get what they need this is just going to die off in yellow so they would just die off the little stem right there it's going to get all the nutrients the onion will protect what's in the center and it's just going to grow when it's ready so cutting it really doesn't save you anything if the plants need it they'll naturally have some die off but they'll come back totally strong right in the middle so for the water-soluble fertilizer just follow the instructions and you're just gonna quickly soak the top this does not count as a watering that's not enough water but we're just spreading out mostly nitrogen across the top and then I'll water in at the end just to show you how to soak them and that will soak down the liquid fertilizer you know into the depth of the soil after that you don't need to feed these anymore they got the organic granular hopefully some compost they got the water soluble fish Emulsion water soluble means the nitrogen potassium and phosphorus are immediately available that's about a gallon maybe a gallon and a half that's all you need I would do the same to the other ones actually let's go over there so you can see how they look these are the bigger ones that were in the flats of I think that was 128 perfect this group was grown in the shoe box right there they're a little bit smaller and even though this is smaller you know maybe a half a gallon or a gallon you could do more if you want if you didn't have a lot of compost or you felt like you didn't really amend the soil give these guys a little more of the water-soluble fertilizer and that's plenty of nitrogen to give them a boost and help them get started all right let's water them in and we're just going to really soak in that top several inches now I showed you how to space them if you want to harvest them more regularly through the season how to space them if you want them to get to full size and seeding is as simple as just a quarter inch deep drop of seed in I like doing the spacing much more closely together because I use them throughout the season this still isn't enough water yet I want to just show you the importance we really want to soak the area down and I'm going to stress it again because that's where people fail the most is they don't water their onion transplants enough to start you have to realize when you put transplants in the ground you could have all this water it's six inches and below but the root systems haven't reached there so you want to water it in until you start seeing the water pool on top you know that you have plenty of water these onions will do really well thanks so much for watching please check out my seed shop at the rustedgarden.com and please subscribe I'll show you how I take care of these onions and I'll even do harvesting videos thanks for watching

Channel: Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden)

Views: 24,782

Keywords: Gardening, Organic, Homesteading, sustainable, Self-Sufficiency, Self Sufficient, Grow food, Growing Food, Homestead, Vegetable Gardening, Composting

Id: nN1Vmoc1LPY

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2023