Garden vegetable – tips for growing the onion

Onions can endure and grow in cooler temperatures so are often one of the first crops to be planted in the garden.

They can be started by seed, which usually ends up making an onion set or fresh end of the season green onions. Or they can be grown using an onion set which will give you larger bulb onions suitable for cooking and slicing.

Helpful onion growing tips

• If you want a constant supply of onions plant a new section on onions every two weeks.
• Store you extra onion sets in a cool dark place to stop them from growing before you plant them.
• Water and feed your onion sets earl in the season with fish emulsion.
• When the tops of you onions turn yellow bend the leaves over to slow the growth of the leaves and divert this growth to the onion bulb.
• Pinch off any flowers that develop on the onions to encourage larger bulbs.
• To cure onion bulbs, drape the tops in a pail and leave the bulbs hanging on the outside of pail. When the skins are dry and the tops have withered cut the bulbs and the bulbs will fall into the pain making cleaning up easy.
• I grow my bulb onions in bushel baskets so that I can just turn the basket over at the end of the season and my crop is harvested quickly with no digging.
• I grow my onion set that I use for green onion by the edge of my gardens to discourage certain pests who do not like the smell of onions

Onions are always in my gardens. I grow sweet white onions, a few yellow onions and red onions. I also have a constant supply of green onions for salads.

One other type of onion I grow is the Egyptian Onions or bunching onions as they are sometimes called.