Onion Sets or Bulbs

I'm posting this in the "beginner" section because even though I've grown gardens for many years I haven't paid much attention to onions and don't know much about them.

Every year in early spring I plant a couple of rows of onions, and when they're full-size in mid-summer I pull them, let them lay for a day or two, then tie them in bunches of 10 and hang them in our barn. We get good use of them for months. I've planted various kinds, though, with various results - and this year I'd like to do better.

Our local supermarket is selling onion "sets" now - bunches of little, tiny bulbs with green tops attached that are cut off about 3" long. Those are mostly "sweet" onions from Texas - and while we like those a lot, I've found in the past that they don't keep well.

Last year I just planted a bag of hard, dry "red" onion bulbs from WalMart. They kept OK, but I never really got any big ones like I have from other onions in the past. Can anybody suggest a variety that's mild, not too strong flavored, makes big onions, and keeps well? I'd be happy to mail-order some onion sets, I just don't know what ones to get. Thanks.

Visit the Dixon's Onion site, www.dixondalefarms.com. They've got their catalog online and will tell you which do best in your area and which are best for storing.

Here's a thread that's been talking onions recently.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1076695/

Ozark,

The Dixondale site does have lots of useful information about types--and they ship nice plants. For your latitude (around 37degrees) you would do well with Intermediate day length onions and might be able to grow long-day onions. The short-day onions like Vidalia and Texas 1015 don't have time to develop before the daylight length would cause them to stop growing well.

Dixondale has a Yellow "Candy" and a "Red Candy" that are both supposed to be good keepers. There's also a short article at Oregon State University that lists several types by daylength requirements.   http://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/story.php?S_No=442&storyType=garden

David R

Ozark, just for clarity, Those bunches of onions are called plants. Most locals will be from Bonnie Plants farms. They do feature short day onions, but also have available the intermediate Candy and the long day Walla Walla. Dixondale or Brown's Omaha has a larger offering. Bonnie does not offer plants of storage type onions. Dixondale does. Brown's is a Texas company and has only short day and intermediate cultivars.

Sets are the small dried onion bulbs typically sold as red, white or yellow. The actual varieties are normally Red Weathersfield, White Ebenezer and Stuttgart. I f you search hard enough you might find Yellow Rock, Australian Brown, Yellow Ebenezer. These all long day storage onions, typically planted for "spring" or "green" onions, but under proper conditions form a decent size bulb (2-3 inches). You may be a bit far south to have those proper conditions.

Wow, as always, the folks here came through in a hurry. I said I didn't know much about onions, and as it turns out I didn't know the difference between plants and sets, and I didn't know they were so sensitive to day length.

No wonder I've grown only small onions in the past with plants from the local market. We were there today, and those varieties are from Brown's in Texas and they're all short-day onions.

I've ordered a bunch of Candy and a bunch of Sweet Candy Apple plants from Dixondale, and I'm all fixed. I also read on the Dixondale site about planting a double row of onions up on a mound with a trench of fertilizer down the middle, with a diagram on how to do it. That's how I'll plant 'em!

Thanks, everybody.

You're welcome! So glad we're here to help you. Be sure to post your progress with your onions so we can see how things are doing.

Ozark - my Candy Red and White onions arrived from Dixondale last week and have already been planted. They were great, healthy looking things. I'm also trying Leeks for the first time this year - they came from Dixondale, too.

Ozark, my dad was a master at growing onions. The key to getting a big onion was knowing when to pull the dirt away from them. As they started bolling, he would take a four prong rake and every few days he would remove a little dirt from around them until finally they would be setting on top of the ground with just the roots in the soil.

The secret of keeping them is storage. He would pull the onions and turn the boll up to the sun and leave them for a few day if rain wasn't threating. He had a table in an open shed coverd with chicken wire and would bring them in and stick the drying green top through the wire with the boll on top, no two touching. He would leave them like that until the top was completely dry. He would then pull off the dried top and put the onions one at a time down an old stocking or panty hose and tie a knot and so forth until all were secure and not touching each other. He would then hang the stockings from the rafter of the shed. Need an onion, just slit the stocking and get one. If one did rot which was seldom, it wouldn't rot the one next to it because no two touched.

Jim, those are great tips. I don't have access to panty hose, so I lay my onions on a table covered with an old towel in the porch out of the sun. I love being able to step outside the kitchen door and retrieve an onion whenever I need one.

I'll try your dad's tip of removing the soil from around the onions as they bulb.