Beginner's Guide for when to Plant Onions.

Hey you guys and welcome back. My name is Jill with The Beginner's Garden. I host The Beginner's Garden podcast and today we're gonna talk about when to plant onions. This is the time of year that I am putting my onion transplants in the ground and it's a question that I get from a lot of people and that is, when is the best time to plant onions? Now, while I can give you the short answer of, in general, you wanna get your onion plants in the ground about six weeks before your average last frost date, in reality, this can vary based on your climate and your location. So what we're gonna do today is we're gonna talk about the factors that go into when you might want to plant your onions, whether you plant from transplant or you want to start from seed. And keep in mind that a lot of this depends on your climate so it's always good to double check the information that I'm sharing with you today with your local sources. That way you can get the plant timing right. Before you even begin to select and plant your onions, you need to understand that when you're buying onions, whether you buy transplants or seeds or even sets, which I'm not gonna talk about sets today because that's actually never worked well for me, that's a whole other subject, you need to know what type of onion you need to grow for your latitude. Onions come in three different categories, short day onions, intermediate day onions, and long day onions. This confused me for so long but it's actually quite simple. Short day onions start bulbing when the day length gets to between 10 and 12 hours a day. Intermediate day, also called day neutral onions, start bulbing when the day length gets to 12 to 14 hours a day. And long day onions start bulbing when the day length gets to 14 to 16 hours a day. Now if you're like me, when I was a beginner, I didn't have a clue how long my days were. I've lived in the same area all my life and I just know that in the summer the days get longer. But here's why it's important to know where you live and what day length of onion you need to plant. The key with onions, especially if you're growing them for bulbs, is that the onion itself is going to go through two different growth phases. The first phase is the green growth. This is where the onion is producing a lot of greens at the top and then at some point, triggered by day length, it will convert to bulb growth. So first stage is green growth, second stage is bulb growth. The larger the bulb that is going to come out of that onion also correlates to more green growth. So if you have a lot of green growth, you're gonna have a larger bulb in most instances. If your onions are not very large, if they're kind of small, they don't have as much green growth, they're not gonna produce as big of bulb. So what you wanna do in your climate is to get the onions in the ground where they have plenty of time to develop really strong green tops. That way, when the day length triggers that bulb growth, there's plenty of top growth to nourish and increase that bulb size. The question then is, how do I know when the bulb growth will be triggered? And that is where maps that you can find on websites like Dixondale Farms come in really handy. I buy my transplants from Dixondale Farms. They're not affiliated here at all. I've just been buying from them for many years. Their onions do fantastic, but they have on their website this map and you can find where you're located on the map to decide whether you want to try growing short day, intermediate day, or long day, depending on your location. Another great thing about their website is that when you go to order from them, they will actually recommend a ship date. And they do that based on your zip code. So if you don't wanna calculate when you need to plant, if you just want to rely on, okay, this is when they need to ship it to me and that's when I'm gonna plant, then that's probably the easiest thing to do for a beginner. But there are some nuances that I've found in my own climate that have made me adjust that just slightly, but not a whole lot. And then when my transplants come in, then I'm able from there to kind of look at the weather and see how the soil is doing and see if it's proper time for planting. So let's talk about that. So as I mentioned earlier, generally what you want to shoot for is to try to get your onions in the ground about six weeks before your average last frost date. But when that date comes around, that's usually about when my onions arrive as transplants. When that date comes around, I'm watching the weather. Onion transplants are generally pretty hardy. In my experience, down into the 20s uncovered. If you get into the lower 20s, I would recommend covering them but even then that is the case for established plants. So I want to plant my onions when I see a little bit of a mild spell. Freezing temperatures at night, really not a big deal, but I don't want them to go too much below 32, 30, something like that when they're very young and transplanted. So I want to time my transplanting when we've got a little bit of a mild spell, hopefully a little bit of a rain to help them acclimate and get established. But then if we get some cold snaps, which we always do, between that planting date and whenever the freezes are gone, then they're going to be able to weather them better. The danger in planting too far ahead of time and too early, which I've done this before, I actually planted one year in late January, is that my onions ended up bolting, which means before they had a chance to really bulb up, they developed a central flower stalk and that just makes it where the bulb stops growing, the center gets really tough. You can use it temporarily but you're not going to be able to store them. And that's just really discouraging when they bolt. When I planted mine too early, so many of them bolted. And I think that's because onions are actually a biennial plant. That first year, they are supposed to make that bulb. If they are left in the garden, they will develop that seed stalk, which will create seeds, which is how they reproduce. But when you plant them too early, as I did, and you get rollercoaster weather, like 70s during the day, and then you get a cold snap of 20s, it thinks it's gone through another winter and another summer. So when I started actually waiting to plant until about six weeks before my average last frost date, I didn't have as much issue with bolting. Another thing is just to make sure that you try different types. So in the map, I'm actually in the middle of the intermediate day and the short day area. And I have found that intermediate day onions actually don't bolt as easily. They also tend to form a little bit bigger bulbs, which makes sense because short day onions are going to start triggering that bulb growth quicker. And if I'm having to wait a little bit longer to plant, then that green growth isn't having as much time to be able to develop before the bulb growth starts. So in my area, intermediate day has actually worked out very well once I started shifting to that. That's why it's important to test, but also see if you live in an area where you could do both, test both and then see what actually works out for you. In my local nurseries for the longest time, short day was all that sold. And it wasn't until I started buying from Dixondale and choosing the intermediate day that I actually started getting good success. Now I have noticed recently that local nurseries are starting to carry intermediate day, but all that to say, if you've grown whatever was available locally, do a little bit of research, see if you want to test or try another day length and see how it works out. Last year, based on some suggestions from local gardeners that are a little bit north of me, but not too far, I actually started testing a long day onion and it worked out really well for me. And according to the maps, I am not in an area where I should be able to plant long day onions, but this particular one worked well. So as I mentioned, also check with people locally that you know that are growing and that they are successful at growing and see what they do. And a lot of times that information is actually more valuable than what you find from gardeners like me who may not live near you. So don't discount the value of talking to people locally. So far, I've talked all about growing from transplants and let me show you actually what that looks like. I've already planted most of mine, but these are the ones that are leftover. This is an onion transplant. It looks like a baby green onion actually. And this is how they actually come when you order them from Dixondale Farms or if you get them from a nursery. This is my favorite type to plant if I'm planting transplants, because I found that it actually works well to be able to give me bulbs and I know what variety I'm looking at. In the past, when I've bought sets locally, they've been great for green onions, but they haven't been great for bulbs. So that's why I don't grow from sets anymore. Although I know a lot of people, especially in the North, when you grow long day onions, you actually may be able to grow those sets because I think they are long day onions. So that would make sense. So this is what a transplant looks like. Now, what about growing onions from seed? I have to be the first to admit that I have not figured out how to successfully and dependably grow onions from seed, even though I've been trying for the last five years, maybe, it's been a while. And the reason is because when you start onions from seed, you have to start way early. Like they're the first things that need to be planted, usually between 12 to 16 weeks before your average last frost date. And for me, that puts me needing to sow my onions in December, January, something like that. But I keep trying, I keep varying the planting dates, I keep trying different kinds. One thing that I have heard from people who sow onion seeds indoors successfully and then transplant out is that they actually are less likely to bolt in general. And maybe they'll actually come to harvest a little bit later, which would be great because the transplants that I purchased from Dixondale and plant, they're usually harvested in June, which means their shelf life is three to six months, depending on what variety I get. But maybe if these would harvest later, I could get a longer harvest. So that's why I keep trying onions indoors. But I bring that up to you because if you're a new gardener and you're wanting to grow onion from seed, most likely if you're watching this now, it might be too late, depends on where you're located. Again, check locally to try to figure that out. In my experience, growing onions from seed has been the most challenging thing that I've ever grown from seed. And I don't want you to be discouraged if you try it and it just doesn't work out well for you. Definitely been there. And it's okay. Some things are just more difficult for some of us than others. And maybe you grow onion successfully from seed and you don't have any problem whatsoever. I would love your tips. I have found that from the gardeners that I talked to that do grow long day onions and they're in the Northern part of the US, they tend to not have as many issues growing onions from seed as I do. And I'm not really sure why, but I would love to hear your tips. For these, I actually planted these in January. I kept them in my greenhouse. I kept them under that light as well. So that way they had a combination of light from the sun, which is always stronger, but the day length was so short. I wanted to supplement it. So it was under grow lights. And then I also had it on a heat mat when it got really cold at night. Now I've got the heater in the greenhouse to make sure it doesn't get too cold. So I turned the heat mat off, especially once they sprouted. But anyway, I supplemented them with light. I also have been adding a liquid nitrogen fertilizer to try to help with that. So stay tuned. We'll see if this actually works. These actually are looking stronger than I've ever had them before. So I'm very hopeful that maybe this will work finally this year, but I am gonna be waiting until these little transplants get to about a pencil in width before I plant them out in the garden. So I'm waiting a little bit longer. That's why I didn't plant them in the garden at the six weeks before your average less prostate, because they're just not quite large enough yet. So for me, all this is one big experiment and we'll see how that goes. But I can tell you the transplants, planting them have always done well for me. And for beginners, especially, I recommend you start with that and then kind of do what I do and experiment until you can get something like seed starting to work. As you can see, planting onions can be a little bit nuanced, especially when it comes to your climate and different considerations like that. Trust me, onions is one of the crops that I've done a lot of things wrong over the years. I've finally gotten to a point where I feel like, at least with transplants, I can have a pretty good success rate. But if you are wanting more information on how to grow onions and to avoid common mistakes in growing onions, check out this podcast, Onions, What Can Go Wrong? And maybe you can get some more tips that will help you grow better onions this year. I hope you enjoyed this video. Like it if you liked the video and subscribe for more. And I'll see you again next week.