Onions across the Seasons: Succession Planting with Related Crops (2024)

FAQs

Can you do succession planting with onions? ›

If you prefer to plant smaller amounts of the same vegetable varieties, stagger plantings seven to 14 days apart to spread the harvest out. As each set of plants finish production, a new set will start producing. This works well for crops such as cabbage, lettuce, onions, radishes and spinach.

Once you've harvested your onions and leeks from your first bed, the next crop in that spot would be cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli, and so on, for the first seven categories.

Onions make great companion plants for many fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, including beets, spinach, alliums, brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, strawberries, potatoes, lettuce, parsnips, carrots, chamomile, parsley, dill, savory, marigolds, and roses.

In spring, plant onion sets outdoors as soon as the ground can be worked, usually in late March or April, when temperatures are no longer likely to dip below 28°F (-2°C). In spring, start onion seeds indoors for about 6 weeks before transplanting to the ground (once the soil is at least 50°F).

It will grow and then produce seeds. Onions are a biannual and you would be planting it for its second season. You can plant those seeds and get many more onions.

Root crops like carrots, radishes, and beets are ideal for succession planting so that you can harvest only those that are ready, enjoy them in your kitchen without being overwhelmed with produce, and plant something new in the space that's been cleared up.

One approach to crop rotation is to divide your plants into these four basic groups: legumes, root crops, fruit crops, and leaf crops. Imagine your garden separated into four areas, as shown in the chart at the top of the page. Each successive year, you would move each group one spot clockwise.

It's crucial to not plant onions in the same location for more than three consecutive years. Rotating your crops helps keep nutrients from being depleted in the soil. Over time, onions can also attract a fungus known as pink root.

Legumes and then the cruciferous crops, including brassicas, are what to plant after tomatoes. Legumes are known to trap nitrogen in nodules that form on their roots, adding nitrogen to the soil.

You will likely find a few sprouts growing at the center of the onion bulb. Some will protrude from the bulb, others will not. Use your hands to gently separate the sprouts from one another so they don't need to compete for space. Given proper care, each sprout can grow into a brand new onion bulb!

Are coffee grounds good for onions? ›

The main valuable component for onions is nitrogen. If you fertilize green plants, such as lettuce and spinach, with a coffee substrate, the yield will be higher due to the nitrogen content of coffee. Adding coffee grounds to soil only benefits onion and green cultures.

Space the holes in your bed in a grid pattern —about 9 inches apart on all sides if planting multiple onions in a bunch like we do. You can also plant onion starts 4 to 6 inches apart if planting the onions individually in a row.

This helps control insect, disease, and weed infestations by limiting crops' existence to one season in a designated field every few years. It can also improve soil quality. Onions in Malheur County are usually rotated on a 4-5 year basis with corn, wheat, potatoes, sugar beets, alfalfa, and other crops.

Growers generally plant 75,000 to 120,000 onions per acre in single rows with 2 inches between plants in the row and 24 inches between rows.

Onions can be transplanted into pots and containers, whether for temporary purposes or as their final position. Any seedlings grown too large for their module can need potting up into a larger pot to grow on. Smaller modules can result in onions quickly using all the nutrients up in the soil available.