When and how to plant onions?

Onions are the most widely used herb in the world. A huge number of its varieties is amazing. A rare dish is served without this fragrant flavor additive – onions are served fresh, fried, stewed, boiled, marinated and added to homemade preparations. And, of course, every summer resident seeks to grow onions in his garden. In this article, we will talk about how and when to plant onions so that the harvest is enough for the whole winter.

Since the onion is an unpretentious and cold-resistant plant, it can be planted both in spring and autumn.

The site for planting onions must be prepared in advance in the fall. It should be a sunny location with neutral loamy soil, located on a slight elevation. The earth is dug up to the depth of a shovel and organic fertilizer (rotted cow manure or compost) is applied at the rate of 5 kg per 1 sq. m.

Then, already in April, when the air temperature is consistently above zero, they add ammonium nitrate (1 teaspoon per 1 sq. M), loosen the ground with a rake and tamp it a little. Next, the area is abundantly watered with warm water and left under a plastic wrap for 2-3 days. After that, you can plant the bulbs.

Compared to spring, the schedule for planting onions before winter is not so tight. In addition, winter onions sprout much earlier and the crop can be harvested as early as July, and the vacated area can be planted with lettuce, broccoli or radishes. When planning onion planting in the fall, it is worth considering the peculiarities of the local climate. In the south, this can be done in October – early November, in the middle lane, in the Urals and Siberia – at the end of September. It is important to choose the time so that the bulbs have time to take root before the start of frost, but at the same time do not begin to grow.

Many summer residents prefer to calculate favorable days according to the lunar calendar. To believe in it or not, everyone decides for himself, but this method can serve as a kind of safety net. The best time for planting onions are the days of the waning moon, located in the signs of Taurus, Cancer, Pisces, Libra and Scorpio.

Proper preparation of beds and planting material is the key to a good harvest. This stage protects the onion from diseases and pests, improves germination and facilitates plant care.

There are two ways to grow onions: from seeds or from sets.. In the first case, they begin to prepare planting material as early as mid-January – a month before the seeds germinate, it is necessary to check them for germination. To do this, choose 10-20 seeds from one batch and wrap in moist warm gauze for two weeks. If the germination percentage is 75% or more, the seeds are suitable for sowing. If everything is in order, then proceed to the preparation of seeds for sowing. They are disinfected in a dark pink solution of potassium permanganate for half an hour, and then washed in clean water.

Then the seeds are kept in warm gauze for 2-3 days, slightly dried and planted in the soil – soddy soil in half with humus. The ground for seedlings is pre-calcined in the oven to destroy the fungus and parasites. Before germination, seedlings are kept in a dark place at a temperature of 18-25°C in cassettes with cells covered with a film. As soon as the sprouts hatch, the film is removed and the seedlings are transferred to a sunny windowsill. When growing onion sets, the first thing to do is select planting material. These should be small neat bulbs without rot or other defects. Small sets (7-14 mm in diameter) sprout later, so it is better to plant it in the fall.

Bulbs of large size (20-30 mm) are also planted before winter for greenery. But the average size (14-20 mm) is the best option for spring planting. Such bulbs do not give arrows and at the same time ripen quickly enough. The sorted seedlings are first heated for 8 hours near a battery or stove to prevent bolting, and then soaked in a solution of potassium permanganate or fungicide for 30 minutes. Next, the seed is thoroughly dried and planted in open ground.

The ideal soil for growing onions is loam with organic and mineral fertilizers.. The close occurrence of groundwater is undesirable, as it leads to excessive moisture and, as a result, to rotting of the bulbs. It is better to choose a plot in the middle of the garden, as there is more sun. In the shade, the onion also grows, but smaller and not so plentiful. The beds form wide, with a slight elevation of 10-15 cm.

The soil is first dug up, applying fertilizers: humus or peat plus superphosphate. The finished bed is abundantly shed with a warm solution of copper sulfate (1 tablespoon per 2 liters per square meter) and covered with agrofiber or film 3 days before sowing.

There are several ways to properly plant onions in open ground. Let’s consider the most effective ones.

• two line. The most common planting pattern, in which the bulbs are arranged in even lines with an interval of 25 cm between rows and 10 cm between holes. The depth of the planting holes is 4-5 cm. During the summer, the aisles are regularly weeded from weeds and loosened.
• Chinese. This planting method differs from the two-line one in that the bed is formed in the form of a high mound with a slope in both directions, and instead of holes, a shallow furrow is dug in it. So the soil warms up faster in the sun, and excess moisture is immediately removed, which prevents the occurrence of rot. Over time, the bed will gradually sag and the bulbs will begin to partially peek out from under the ground. Warming up by the sun will accelerate the ripening of the “turnips”, and the onion fly, which is afraid of the sun, will bypass such plantings. The distance between the ridges of the beds should be 30-35 cm, and carrots, lettuce or dill can be “settled” in the furrows as “neighbors” for onions. For feeding onions grown in this way. do not use manure; instead, you can feed the plantings with a solution of ash or yeast.
• Square-nesting. This method is good because it simplifies the care of the beds and at the same time reduces the likelihood of damage to the onions by insects.
• The bulbs are planted in the ground to a shallow depth in a checkerboard pattern, that is, four turnips per “nest” at once. Thus, as the onions grow, they will, as it were, repel each other and rise above the surface. Removing such a bow is several times faster than in the case of a conventional linear landing, because you can pull it out of the ground four at a time. To prevent the appearance of weeds and enhance the warming of the soil, the beds are mulched with chopped grass, hay, sawdust, and you can also sow onions immediately under the covering material. This method is used for winter onions. Agrofibre helps to level out sudden temperature changes in the autumn-winter period and suppresses the growth of weeds in the warm season.
• Mostovoy. In this way, onions are planted on greens. At the same time, the bulbs are located in the same furrow close to each other, which significantly saves space in the garden. The denser the planting, the more greenery.

Nigella is called onion seeds, from which sevok is obtained for planting next year. Such seeds ripen in flowers located on the arrows of mature bulbs. They have a black color, a ribbed surface and small sizes (2-3 millimeters). Once in the ground, the seeds grow into small onions, which are later used as planting material.

Seeds are obtained as follows: several large bulbs are selected and planted in early spring, as soon as the snow melts. In summer, they wait for the appearance of umbrellas and seed pods. So that too long arrows do not break, they can be tied up, and the flowers protect against insect attacks with a mesh cover. Seeds ripen within 2-3 weeks in a warm, dry place.

Sevok is a small onion that has grown from seeds in a year. In one more season, he will give a full harvest. It is necessary to plant sevok in the first half of May, when there is no risk of frost returning. To grow an onion for a turnip (or, as they say, for a head), you can’t cut off the arrows from it. Sevoc grown on greens are placed separately.

For these purposes, use large bulbs. They can be planted close to each other and not too deep. Following the principles of crop rotation, onion planting sites change every year. It is best to plant it where cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes or peppers grew last year.

Onions love neutral soil. If it is acidic on the site, you can fix this problem with wood ash, chalk or dolomite flour. The soil for planting with onions is fertilized with organic matter in the fall. Thus, when the snow melts in the spring, nutrients can penetrate deeper into the soil. The general calculation of organic fertilizers is 6-8 kg per 1 sq. m. When the soil is depleted, mineral fertilizers containing potassium and phosphorus are additionally used. Superphosphate is best suited for this purpose. It is diluted in a proportion of 20-25 g per bucket of water – this amount is enough for 1 sq. m.

As for plant nutrition, this is done for the first time when the onion greens reach a height of 10 cm. 30 g of urea, 200-250 g of manure are dissolved in a bucket of water and the beds where the onion grows are watered with the resulting solution. At the same time, nitrogen-containing fertilizers, for example, a solution of ammonium nitrate, can be applied. The second feeding is done four weeks after planting. To ensure the growth of bulbs, superphosphate or a complex fertilizer containing phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium is needed. Also among gardeners, the folk method of feeding onions with yeast is extremely popular.

To do this, take 100 g of fresh yeast and dilute it in 3 liters of warm water with the addition of two tablespoons of sugar and a pinch of wood ash. The solution is insisted for a couple of hours, and then the beds are watered with it. There is another recipe: half a kilogram of grass is mixed with the same amount of bread crumb, poured with warm water and insisted for three days. The resulting solution is filtered and used for irrigation. Such recipes are effective in cases where the onion is weakened or restored after transplantation. After each application of fertilizer, it is necessary to slightly loosen the soil.