Growing onions is a must for any garden! There are so many different varieties all with unique flavors that will come to life in your kitchen. Spring onions are sweet, mild, and great in salads. Bulbing onions of gold, yellow, and red can give your dishes complex flavors and aromas. In our kitchen, almost all recipes start with an onion! Onions are easy to grow if you know a few expert tips. You need to know what kind of onion to grow in your area if you want to succeed.
When to Grow Onions
Onions are a cool-season crop, meaning they like to grow in the cooler months of the year. For zones 9 and 10 you want to start your bulbing onions in the fall. Let them overwinter and harvest in late summer and fall. For spring onions, shallots, and other smaller onions, you can plant them in the spring and enjoy them as soon as they are the desired size.
The most common mistake gardeners make with growing onions is they can’t get their onions to bulb. The most common reason why is because they planted a variety that is not appropriate for their region. Bulbing onions are daylight sensitive so you must grow the right kind in your area for success. Here are the three kinds.
Short Day Onions: 10-12 hours of sunlight required to form bulbs
Intermediate Day Onions: 12-14 hours of sunlight required to form bulbs
Long Day Onions: 14-16 hours of sunlight required to form bulbs
Those of us south of San Francisco should grow short-day onions.
Onion Varieties
There are lots of different varieties of onion available in seed. We specialize in short-day onions for southern growers. Gold coin onion is a tasty cipollini-style onion that does really well in Southern California. Red Burgundy is a classic red onion for southern states. Red Rock is a high-quality specialty red onion that does exceptionally well in southern states. For those in the north, we have tons of green and shallot-style onions that can be grown during any frost-free time of the year. Our Torpedo onion creates beautiful red shallots that are mild and tasty. They can be planted in spring for an early summer harvest. Then, of course, there are standard favorite varieties of onions like Toyko and Evergreen bunching onions.
Onions are very easy to start from seed. You can choose to direct sow or transplant. If you choose to direct sow them in to the ground, you must make sure that you keep the soil moist the entire time the seeds are germinating to get good, even germination. This may mean watering 2-3 times a day when the soil dries out. You can, alternatively, easily start your seeds in trays or starter pots. Seeds should be planted in good seed starting soil and be kept moist until they germinate. For even germination, use finely sifted soil to cover your seeds.
Growing Onion Plants
Once your onion has sprouted, you need to get it growing! Your onion seedlings will need to be fertilized after about 2 weeks of growing. The best fertilizer for your baby plants is a liquid fertilizer with even numbers of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. For example, a good product is a liquid fish emulsion with 2-2-2. Harsh chemical fertilizers can burn your plants, so use a natural or organic fertilizer if possible.
Onion Companion Plants
Onions are relatively fuss-free once you get them up and growing. You can leave them be until they are ready to be harvested. Beneficial flowers and companion plants can help keep your onions happy and healthy by bringing in beneficial insects. Plants like Nasturtium, Alyssum, Sunflowers, and Zinnias can grow very happily next to your onions.
Growing Onions in Containers or In-Ground
Onions can easily be grown in a container. What is great about growing them in a container is that you can move them around if needed. If you choose to grow onions in a container, make sure you use compost to help keep the soil in your container moist. You can mulch the top of the soil to help keep the soil cool and moist during warm months. If you choose to plant them in the ground, plant them in an area of your garden where they will not be in the way of other plants. Like in a corner where they can grow happily as you tend to the rest of your garden.
Harvesting Onions
Knowing when to harvest your onions can be a tricky thing. Here are some pro tips. First, you need to know what kind of onion you are growing. If you are growing a bulbing variety, you need to wait until the plant has fully grown its bulb. This is usually in the fall. The tips of the onions turn brown and fall over, letting you know that they have completed their life cycle and are ready to be harvested. If you are growing spring onions, shallots, or green onions, you can harvest them at any point that they are large enough to use. Keep in mind onions like our Toyko variety can grow over 4” wide! That’s almost the size of a leek!
How long do onions take to grow? Onions require 90-100 days to mature from seed, which is around four months. From sets, onions are ready to harvest after around 80 days, or just under three months.
Grow them in a sunny spot that has fertile, well-drained soil with a pH of 6.0 to 6.8. Improve your native soil by mixing in several inches of aged compost or other rich organic matter. Onions aren't great at taking up water, so it's important to keep soil moist so their shallow roots can drink up.
The base of the onion, where roots grow, is the part needed to save and regrow. The bulb onions used in cooking can be regrown, too. The method differs in just one way from regrowing scallions, and that is to plant the scraps of these onions in soil.
A single Onion bulb or a single Onion seed will produce one Onion. The size of the Onion will vary depending on the variety and the growing conditions. The cheapest way to produce your own Onions is to grow them from seed, a single packet of seed is often sufficient to supply Onions for the year.
Onions make great planting companions due to their ability to improve the flavor of their companion plants, as well as deter pests like aphids, Japanese beetles, and rabbits. However peas, pole beans, bush beans, and asparagus don't grow well when planted near onions.
Since the onion is a cool weather crop, foliage development requires a temperature of 45-60º and bulb formation requires a temperature requirement of 60-75º for optimum bulb size. In addition to temperature, bulbing is initiated when the daylight length reaches the number of hours critical for that variety.
Onions need a lot of water, but the soil should never get soggy. Ideal onion water needs are to irrigate to a depth of an inch (2.5 cm.) once a week rather than a light sprinkling each day.
Onion sets are immature bulbs that are 3/4 inches in diameter and smaller. You can usually find these in bags of 100 in the spring—plus, they are easy to grow. "You just open the bag and plant each set an inch deep and you're done," says Jabbour. Most onion sets take between 90 to 100 days to mature to full-size bulbs.
If you have an onion that is sprouting that you bought at a store, or a stored onion that has started shooting, then you can plant that whole onion, but you will not get onions from it. If you plant an entire onion you will just get green onion sprouts to harvest.
Gardeners treat common onions as annual vegetables however, and pull the bulbs at the end of the first growing season. Perennial onions, on the other hand, are plants that self-multiply and can be left in the garden for many years.
With multiplier onions, you plant a single bulb and as they grow they split (or multiply) into a clump of bulbs. So far I've planted two different kinds of onions, I'Itoi and Yellow Potato Onion. Both of them are heirloom varieties with a rich history, and both are enjoying somewhat of a revival in the 21st century.
You can still add onions to your patch. While it's smart to stay away from bulb onions in June because there isn't a long enough growing season for them to reach maturity, this is not the case with bunching onions (otherwise known as green onions or scallions).
Whether you're growing onions from the grocery store or from starts in the garden, you always want to remove the flower bud so the plant will put all its energy into forming the bulb. After we cut off the bulbs, we knew it would not be long before we could check out our harvest.
Answer: All onions and leeks are biennial, meaning that they normally take two years to grow from seed, flower and set seed again. First, they grow “vegetatively,” forming roots, leaves and other plant growth.
Stick your finger into the ground near the plants; if you can't feel moisture up to your first knuckle, it's time to water. In a typical 12 week growing season, we recommend irrigating with one inch of water once or twice a week depending on the amount of rainfall received.
Onions are easy to grow. They perform best in well-drained, slightly acidic, fertile soils in full sun. Heavy soils can be improved by incorporating organic matter, such as compost, into the soil. Onions require higher fertility levels than most other vegetables.
This happens because onions are biennials. They grow foliage and a bulb the first season, then bloom and set seed in their second growing season. Growing the sets counts as one growing season - although it is definitely a short one!
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