Recap: Choose the right variety! Short, Intermediate, or Long-Day onion. Then, decide if you're planting by seed, set, or transplant. THEN, care for your onion babies like your life depends on it. Cultivate nice, healthy, dark green leaves and you'll have incredible bulbs.
Can you discuss definitively whether people are correct to flatten/bend their leaves at a certain point to 'encourage bulb growth' OR to 'cure the bulb for storage'? Both claims have been made and I've seen contention on both these and there's a lot of misinformation out there.
Great video as always. Just finished my first gardening season and your videos were a huge support. Will be watching all winter and prepping for Season #2!!
Being a new gardener, you have been a lifesaver for everything I do in the garden. The perfect mix of good information and brevity. Thanks and keep it up!!
Seeds all the way, baby! I’m in Zone 3b and always used sets... got golf ball sized onions. This year, I started 3 varieties from seed way back in February (under grow lights, of course) and got a BUMPER crop of BIG onions! Thanks, Kevin! Keep on growin!
Here in SW Ohio, I broadcast onion seeds on a raised bed in the late fall so that they can sprout and get started growing before winter sets in. They over-winter nicely, and then in the spring I have green onions to pull for eating. The ones that don't get pulled continue growing through the summer for harvesting the bulbs in the fall.
@@psykedude We're in grow zone 6 with Dec, Jan, and Feb having temps in the 20's, and occasional temps down to zero or just below. By early March we are back up just above freezing.
This summer I went through a period when I was harvesting so much stuff from my garden that the only veggies I still regularly needed from the store were... Onions. So I decided next year I'm growing my own! I purchased 2 varieties of seed and am going to try making my own opinions sets over winter indoors following the method I saw in an MI Gardener video. (He is in my general region of the country.) Hoping for the best!
Kevin, you didn't mention perennial onions, such as the Red Welsh Bunching Onion. They are also referred to a multiplier onions since they divide each year. Don't know if these grow in your grow zone, but for places where they do grow is nice to be able to just pull the young onions and leave others to continue growing and dividing without ever having to plant them again.
And if you're planting in raised beds, plant them around the edges, that way you can still use most of the bed for other things while the onions (which take ages to grow) grow. A little valuable tip from Rachael at That 1870's Homestead ! I learnt that tip too late and now as my onions bulb up (here in Australia) I've had to squeeze my tomato plants in around them, which is not ideal at all.
Really great instructions and explanation of how onions actually grow and what sets are. But I have to correct you on something. The day length and the USDA growing zone have nothing to do with each other. For example, I live in zone 8b, which according to your video is a "short day" onion area. But I live in the maritime area of northwest Washington. We have very long summer days, and only the long day onions grow well here.
Kevin! I live in Zone 3A!! I grew red onion bulbs from seed and they actually got quite large, some grocery store sized. What I did was 'winter sowing'! I took gallon size milk jugs, cut them in half, holes in bottom for drainage, potting/seedling soil, seeds, wet it, put milk jug top back on and duct tape it together, put it out on top of THE SNOW IN FEBRUARY and wait. It's a micro-climate. you don't even need the lid (probably better off for aeration). Transplant them at proper stage and once it warms up. My February is -30 to -35 celsius (-31 F) on average and mother nature works fine here to wake up the seeds at the right time! Also grew other seedlings doing this!
You are a life saver, I will be planting my onion seeds this spring 2021 and can't thank you enough for clearing some information up regarding long days and short days, seeds vs sets and so forth...I am excited you motivate me to continue to plan my garden and grow...thanks for the confidence! All the best from freezing NY!
I am on the northern Gulf Coast at 30 degrees 22 minutes latitude so I grow short day onions. For me the best way is to start seeds in September or October in flats and transplant them into the garden mid January to mid February. By about the first of May I am pulling lots of big delicious onions.
Yay! So happy to find your advice. I'm in San Diego north county. Just planted red onion seeds this past week in my raised bed, then covered in straw mulch. It gets full sun so hopefully by January I will be seeing some onions growing! I save seeds and one year I planted the red boiling onions they sell at grocery stores. They grew like crazy and one of them flowered so I let it go to seed. I got a vitamin sized bottle of onion seed from that one plant. We will see how it goes, I'm excited.
That was enlightening! I didn't know about long/medium/short day difference! Assuming that we've chosen the right variety, what is your advice on making sure the bulbs get big? I would imagine a good amount of nitrogen as an organic feed or mulch would encourage those all important leaves to grow?
For the past few years, I planted onions in increasing quantities that I THOUGHT would get me through until the next season -- Year 1 it was 20. Year two, it was 40. Year three it was 80. Never enough! For year 4 (2020), I doubled it again and planted a 162-tray with a mix of Ailsa Craig, Globo, Walla Walla Sweet, Evergreen Hardy, and North Holland Blood Red. It was the most onions I had ever planted. Well... So much for thinking 162 Onions would be plenty! If you HAVE onions, you USE them! Here it is 11/5, and my crop is almost gone! Keeping fingers crossed that I finally get it right in 2021 (year 5) -- instead of doubling the quantity, it will be quadrupled -- FOUR of the 162-trays! 🤣 Good luck to you in your 2021 garden! Best wishes from Kate in Olympia, WA
I have some transplants coming next week of Sweet onions and I started purple onions a month ago... doing well they’re all like 5 inches tall. I can’t wait. I’m in the same zone as you 10b
Hello fellow San Diegan! I really enjoy your helpful videos. Glad to see you sporting a local coffee shop too! I moved from the RB area about 20 mins south and miss going to Mostra! Thanks for your tips and keep up the great work. 😊
our videos are always worth watching, I'm always learning something new or a way to combined your ideas with mine. I'm in zone 4a. Looking forward to your next one.
Oh dear , I immediately subscribed cos I'm a gardener and you make things easy, the explanations are just apt! With much love from Ghana. thanks buddy .
If you live in the "long day" zone, but the area you have available to plant has limited sun (due to buildings and foliage blocking the sun) would it make sense to plant an intermediate, or even short day, onion?
starting onion seeds indoors is easy as pie! you can just sow them in a tray or pan like grass seeds, cover them with a bit of the seed start mix, then water and wait! You'll end up with a nice mat of mini green onions ready for planting out at about the frost date! You can just tease the plants apart from each other at planting time; the roots are very robust and can handle the stress.
Well, darn! I should have watched this before I just planted a big window box full of Spanish Onion and Red Ruby Onion seeds. Both are long day onions. Does that mean my packets of long day seeds are useless if I live in San Diego or do i just wait until the summer to plant when the days are longer? This was a great way to explain it all and I learned so many new things about onions that I never knew I wanted to know.
And just so I'm clear... The onions I planted about 3 weeks ago or so that have 6 inches or so on them will live through the winter??? I'm in Georgia..I mulched them with straw.
@@epicgardening Like garlic, onions kind of go to sleep when it gets really cold but they come back when it warms up. A long, hard freeze might kill them off. But lots of mulch is a gardener's best friend. One item that is rarely mentioned when choosing varieties is how well the store. Red onions typically don't store as well as yellow or white onions. Thanks for the post.
A thick, heavy gauge simple cardboard box will also help insulate plants from the cold. And of course it would need to be removed, to allow the sun to work it's magic and make it grow. 😊
Fantastic tips! I especially liked the one where the number of leaves was the number of layers on the onion bulb. Also great to know which variety of onion (long day etc) is best for your growing area. Oh and that sets are mainly long day. THANK YOU
Hi I’m new to gardening. I’m am replanting green onions because that’s what I use the most. They are starting to wilt and die. Any ideas or tips on why this is happening?
My problem with growing onions has been that leaves tend to bend, break once they reach a foot or foot and a half, on their own in the middle of the summer, then they dry out and the onions bulbs never really grow. I usually watered plenty. Do I use a fertilizer?
This is so funny I commented on another of your videos about hoping to learn how to make my own dried spices such as onion powder and here’s a video on how to grow onions!
The UK is mostly all zone 7+ but it's long-day due to its latitude. Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands are long-day and New Zealand would probably be long and intermediate, with Australia being short and intermediate day.
I love your channel as well as all the other gardening channels. Gardening here in WA state. My Sweet Spanish, Red Candy Onions, and Cipollini transplants are doing great and growing big. Ready to harvest in a couple of weeks. However, my Walla Walla and Apache from seed are slow going. Probably harvest by September. I've also started the process of overwintering onions to get ahead for next year. I'm growing leeks and shallots but they're a lost cause. Have you done a segment on either of those two? Or have grown them in the past?
Moved from Northern California to Florida and any onions I plant just rot in the ground due to monsoon rains here every summer. Any ideas on how to keep them dry while they grow?
Long day onion, short day onion...who knew? Not me. Great information Kevin. Never really knew how that plant worked. Now I know why my onions have always been so "puny." Starting over and praying to the onion gods...
Excellent, thanks. I'm pondering an indoor grow of some onion, I keep light on for 13-14 hours so it looks like I'll try an intermediate. Any chance you know of any "fast" growing varieties? Thank you, sir. The thumbs-up was cultivated and transformed into a ripe blue color.
Appreciate the cultivation! I would look up an intermediate-day chart and then skew towards the faster maturing ones...so many varieties it's hard to recommend!
@@epicgardening I did not know there was such a thing as an intermediate-day chart for onions... and now I know. I'm eyeing the Red Long of Tropea. Thank you, kind sir.
Tried onions from seed over the last month, really slow endeavor! I was considering just buying grocery store onions and making them sprout so that I could companion plant them with my nightshades this season, then I remembered "Sets."
What happens if you are in long day area, but the onions will be in shade part of the day? Should you switch to intermediate or short dah onions? Ive had horrible luck with seed (1 or 2 shallot sized bulbs 18 months later from a full pack of seed), and sets are doing much better, but don't seem to be bulbibg out..... at least not yet.
Hey Kevin regarding the onion sets, since onions are biennial the sets would then be on their second year and want to flower more right? That's what I was brought up with anyway. If untrue I'd love the Epic Truth lol.
I planted early in the spring and got a bit but did some other companion plants, the onions went away. However once the other plants came out, the onions started taking off again. But I have no clue if they're getting enough light, so will change plans next year for placement. Townhouse living limits where the light gets.
Would have loved to know how to handle when they start flowering pre-maturely. I have grown from sets and transplants. No idea what type but sets did lot better. Didn't get much onions if any from the transplants last yr though the onion scapes were pretty food tasting.
Yep, I made these mistakes! Planted sets in Spring (probably too late) here in zone 7...they made small to medium sized onions...will follow your good tips this time Kevin, Thank You! My garlic came out good though (planted in Fall)...wonder why (since they are both of Allum family) we can't plant onions sets in Fall as well ?
I Now understand the short intermediate long day varieties of onions. My question is why wouldn't the suppliers send the right kinds of sets seeds plants to the right zones. So why wouldn't places like where I live in the south get the short day varieties? I guess I just don't understand the reason why we would be sent things that wouldn't be successful growing here
I’m in an “intermediate onion” range however we get sometimes up to 16 hours of day light where I live in the summer. Should I continue with intermediate or try long day for the spring to summer time frame and can I grow short day onions for fall panting?
Excellent information on growing onions. Do you think elevation changes anything? Im in New Mexico and we are over 5,200 feet here so the sun is stronger.
I live in Seattle area and we are zone 8b. Our days are easily 16-18 hours long. Does that mean I should be growing long day onions though you say in the video to grow short day onions for zone 7+? I haven’t had much success with onions at all even though I’ve been trying to grow walla walla onions (local-ish to Washington state) and I don’t really know what I’m doing wrong.
Hello! this isn't related to onions, but I have a heartleaf philodendron that I got from the clearance section of Walmart to nurse back to health. it wasn't actually that bad off, just had been severely overwatered in the recent rain. I put it in a pot of the correct size, let the soil dry out for about two weeks, and have been tending to it for about two weeks now. It has a bunch of leaf sprouts that should be unfurling a least a little, but haven't? I'm not sure what's wrong and want it to start trailing, but first priority is to not kill it!
Struggling to find good intermediate day yellow onion varieties ... I’ve started some “Vadalia” onions because I live in GA but I’m a little more north than the line showed in this video for short day onions not a big fan of red onion which seems like my biggest variety option doesn’t anyone in central GA know a good yellow onion to grow from seed?
How do make shallots grow shoots from none? I have some which are rooted and planted them. It has been 3 days, most of them arent having shoots except for those that have it when bought. Any way to induce it?
1st of all THAAAAANK YOU FOR THE TIPS! I've been struggling with growing onions for a while now. 2nd where do you get the cute contents like the growing onions 1:01 ? I also recall when you were talking about broccoli there was pieces of broccoli being thrown into the water and it was so eye catching to see the water splashing as you were talking. I want to use them in my cooking videos but they take a lot of time to produce and with my not do good camera I'm not getting anywhere. Is there a source where we can download them from and edit them into our videos or we simply need to do it ourselves? Thank you again Kevin💞💞💞💞
Great and informative video! I'm in Southern California, West LA specifically. What months would you start onion seeds from? And what type of fertilizer would you use?
My onions lasted the winter and still have huge leaves. But the bulbs (I moved some dirt to look) are still super small and they've been growing over a year. What did I do wrong? Lol
you can harvest them for immediate cooking whenever you want. for storing, the tops will flop over and begin to brown/die back once the onion is fully mature and ready for curing
@@richards5110 THANK YOU so much for answering. My first time growing onions this past season and I kept peaking at them afraid they were going to rot. Your the best 😘
I'm from South Africa and my red onions are struggling to grow. They take way longer than expected and are so small. They are the size of a golf ball and I'm supposed to pull them in a month's time.
Is it day light or the time the sun is hitting them? I have a spot that gets around 10 hours of sun in the afternoon only. Would that be short day onions?
