Planting Onions

The onions that I started from seed didn't do very well this year.  Out of both trays that I started I only got about 10 yellow onion seedlings and maybe 5 red onion seedlings.  Since they both germinated so poorly, I have resorted to planting onion sets again.  I did do a little research on growing your own onion sets and I learned that I can start them in late summer to grow sets that I can plant out next spring.  If I have enough garden space at that time of year, I just might try it.  They couldn't do any worse than the seeds I planted in January!

The original plan was to plant two beds with onions since I seem to always run out of them before the winter is over.  I bought a pound each of yellow and red onion sets from the local co-op.  When I planted them, I discovered that the yellow onion sets were much smaller than the red ones, so I had quite a few less red onions to plant.  I plant my onions fairly close together with a 3-4 inch spacing in a grid pattern.

I like them to be planted close together because it reduces competition from weeds and I can plant a large number in a relatively small space.  It turns out that I fit both the red and yellow onions all into one bed.

There are just over 300 onions sets in this 3 x 10 foot bed.  Once I had them spaced out the way I wanted I then dug each set into the ground about an inch and covered them.  The final step was a thorough soaking and a light mulch covering.  Once they come up I will mulch them more heavily to control weeds and keep moisture in the soil better.