I need to plant my onions, BUT we're supposed be dropping into the teens and twenties at night beginning on Tuesday. Not expected to get above freezing or out of the thirties for much of the week. Do I go ahead and plant or wait for this cold spell to pass and plant them next week?
Should I Plant my Onions or Wait?
I would plant them- I have onions in the ground that have been green all winter- same with my garlic.
My fear is that they won't have time to root before the really freezing cold sets in.
Stephanie,
At this point, a couple of days won't matter. Don't risk freezing all you plants. Put them in the ground as soon as the freeze this week passes. If you'd had them planted for a few weeks, they'd probably weather the freeze fine--but since they aren't established, waiting a few days could save some of the plants.
David
David, that's what I was thinking.
I just checked the weather forecast for Fort Worth. I agree with David, hold off. I don't know if you are putting out sets or plants but with the ice/super cold weather coming your way I'd wait until Saturday when it passes.
Any chance you can cover your onion growing area w/a tarp or plastic to keep it from getting too wet to plant? That would give you a head start, not having to wait for your soil to dry out.
Shoe (who hopes you have plenty of firewood or store-bought heat to keep you warm!)
I doubt we'll get much of the wet stuff. It's supposed to really hit east of here. Key word there being "supposed to". LOL
Well,
I checked on my 4 EBs of onions this weekend, and they seem to be firmly entrenched. They'd been under a cardboard teepee on the covered patio, to block the wind, and the beating rain until they got established. Well, they also grew leaning toward the light, so, I moved all the EBs to the edge where the light will hit them under the patio cover.
We're predicted to go into the mid-20s for four mornings in a row this week. Plan B is to completely wall off a portion of the patio using 4 mil contractor's plastic, to keep out the wind. I could create a room big enough to move all the container plants into, and shove a space heater outside on the patio (if necessary) to generate some heat. Should be quite toasty in there...
Just have to not burn down the house...
Gymgirl - if you add translucent corrugated fiberglass roofing to your above ideas, you'd make yourself a dandy little greenhouse!
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/corrugated-fiberglass-roofing.html
Please don't burn down your house!
Bee!
You're a doll!
Gymgirl - your post got me thinking about replacing our porch roof, so I did some more "googling"
http://cloudtops.com/
This place also has shade cloth, greenhouse film etc
I've NOT used this company