Any tips for growing onions?

[lovinglife]

I plant garlic in late fall and harvest the following summer. It is about the first thing I harvest. I start with cloves though, not seeds... and for my onions, they stopped growing long before the season was over, I was drying huge onions that had already had the tops fall over, so I bent the rest of them and started the curing process. I may be doing something wrong but I get great onions and garlic...

 

[zigs]

Garlic is something that you want to give quite some time to grow. I planted some last year and even by the end of the summer, they were not big. I do have some in the garden still from last year (I didn't see them there earlier so wondering if the green was no longer green for a little while.) .

They should be making new growth by now, when they come up, dig them up and separate them out, usually 6 inches apart, a foot between the rows.

Best to by Garlic cloves from a nursery rather than using supermarket bought bulbs, which may have been treated with a growth inhibitor to give them a longer shelf life. Could be why the bulbs were small.

If you can't get to a nursery, get some organic bulbs.

Normally plant Garlic cloves in october so they make good root growth over the winter, then harvest when the leaves start to turn yellow, before all the top growth dissapears & you can't find em.

 

[zigs]

I had the same issue with growing onions, but at least you saw something. In my case, I planted the onion bulbs and looked for growth, but unfortunately never did see anything. At least you were able to get some scallions from your onions, as I said, I didn't even get that but I would love to know the best way to get some great results from onions because I am an onion girl, I love cooking with onions all the time so it would be great to produce my own onions.

I did hear it takes time to grow some nice size onions. I'm thinking of trying again and am also thinking about trying garlic as well. I wish you better luck with your onions, please wish me luck as well (lol).

By bulbs, do you mean onion sets or the whole onion?

 

[Sridevi]

Iam new to gardening. Need tips on growing onions in zone 2, 5, 6

 

[dconklin]

They should be making new growth by now, when they come up, dig them up and separate them out, usually 6 inches apart, a foot between the rows.

Best to by Garlic cloves from a nursery rather than using supermarket bought bulbs, which may have been treated with a growth inhibitor to give them a longer shelf life. Could be why the bulbs were small.

If you can't get to a nursery, get some organic bulbs.

Normally plant Garlic cloves in october so they make good root growth over the winter, then harvest when the leaves start to turn yellow, before all the top growth dissapears & you can't find em.

Yeah my biggest problem I think is that I planted the garlic in the spring last year - not knowing that they needed as much time to grow. I think I planted them around the end of March or so, apparently not enough time for them to grow! It wasn't originally my intention to plant them but they started to grow the little shoots in the center so I figured I would try to plant it

 

[zigs]

Worth a go if they are already sprouting, at least you can eat the leaves in salads. There is a spring planting variety available.

 

[Rosyrain]

I have never tried to grow big onions, like those you would find in the grocery store, but the small onions I grew turned out wonderful. Scallions can be grown in a pot with very little care and they taste great. I try to grow my own onions for salads and such, but unless you have a big space and time to maintain them, big onions are a little harder.