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Onions
As we lurch toward spring, I rejoice that I am still eating food from my garden. My spirits are lifted when I start a stew by sautéing my own onions and garlic, then adding my whole frozen tomatoes. I grow vegetables not only for the money I save and the flavors I savor: I grow things like onions because they keep well and it makes me happy to cook with my own veggies, especially now, in the depths of winter.
I start onions by seed in early March. Most gardeners plant onions sets, those little bulbs sold in mesh bags or measured out by the pound at garden centers. Not me. I like to start onions from seed because I think I get better and bigger onions that way.
Here’s the deal: onion sets were started by seed last year but grown so close together that they never got to be full size onions – they became those little sets. My onions, on the other hand, will start off life in flats indoors and will be given luxury treatment.
Most members of the onion family are easy to start by seed, including onions, leeks, scallions and shallots. The onion family plants like fertile, loose soil that is rich in organic matter and that stays lightly moist. Very dry or very wet conditions won≠t work too well. None of them compete well with weeds.
I like to start onion seeds indoors in a nice rich planting medium, a 50-50 mix of potting soil and compost. The seeds are pretty small so you will need to take some care in placing them. One easy way is to fold an index card and place some seeds in the crease. You can jiggle them off the card one at a time, or push them off with a pencil.
I don’t make divots in the planting mix for onion seeds (because they are so small), I just drop the seeds on the soil surface, press them down, and sprinkle a little fine planting mix or agricultural vermiculite to cover the seeds. Vermiculite is a heat-expanded mineral that is sold at garden centers and is used to add fluff and water-holding abilities to soil mixes.
Onion seedlings are happy growing an inch apart or even less, so I use containers the same size and material as the 6-packs, but that have no divisions in them. I drop seeds fairly close together – half to three-quarters of an inch apart. That way I get 24- 36 onions per container. Later, when it is time to plant, the plants will separate easily without damage to their roots. I will plant them an inch or two apart, and thin to 3-4 inches by mid-summer, eating the thinnings.
Keep the growing medium indoors lightly moist, not soggy nor dry. After a month of growing, you soil medium may become a little depleted of nutrients. The solution? Mix up some fish-and-seaweed fertilizer and give them a dose once a week. If you have a sensitive nose and are growing them in a space where you spend time, you may want to skip the fish and just water with a seaweed fertilizer as the fish solutions can offend some noses. Both versions have not only the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium of chemical fertilizers, they also have calcium, magnesium and lots of the micronutrients that a chemical fertilizer does not contain.
Like all seedlings, young onion plants need plenty of light to grow well indoors. I hang fluorescent lights about a foot above the tops of the seedlings, moving up the lights as the leaves get taller. I hang my lights from jack-chain so that I can adjust the height of the lights easily. But the real trick for having good sturdy plants is to give them a trim every couple of weeks. When your plants are about six inches tall, cut off two inches. Repeat as needed.
Copra Onions
For years my favorite onion for storage and cooking has been one called “Copra”. Then last fall a rumor was flying around in farming circles that Copra was being discontinued. I was disappointed because it is such a good onion – it’s tasty, and I’ve kept Copra onions from one year until the next year’s onions were ready to start eating. But like most rumors, it turned out not to be true.
There is only one big producer of Copra seeds; they own the rights to Copra, and sell to seed companies like Johnny’s Seeds. That producer has found another onion that they judge to be of superior flavor and saving ability, one called “Patterson”. I have gotten some Patterson seeds and will start some this year to see if they are really as good as Copra – or perhaps even better. I’ll report back next year.
Another way to grow onions and to by-pass the seed starting work is to buy small plants. Most garden centers and many seed companies sell started onions in the spring. They are generally sold in bundles of 50. They often look dried out and miserable, but once in the soil they green up and take right off.
You can plant your onion seedlings outdoors a month before your last frost, and harvest them when the tops flop over in august. Dry them for a couple of weeks in a shady, rain-free spot. Then next winter you can eat your own onions on those gray days when you need something to perk you up. It works for me.