Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Plant Rescue 103B - Onions

Overwintered onions,  3/19/2012
      My post about onions on March 14th did not contain pictures about cleaning up the onions that overwintered.  There were bulbs from the porch that had started to sprout, and bulbs from both gardens that are starting to regrow.  When they regrow, they send up multiple new plants which should be separated and replanted.  I hope the new shoots make good bulbs, or this activity is a waste of time.  In this picture above, you can see the new growth starting on two of these onions.  I have already started to peel the shiny one.


      Layer after layer needs to be peeled back until you get to individual plantlets.  This onion is nice because it is still mostly firm.  Some in the ground can be pretty mushy and yucky, thus a mess to tear apart.

Onions to replant, 3/19/2012
      Those two onions resulted in this total of eight stems to replant.  I have not found any literature on this topic of regrowth.  Will the newly planted onions think they are two years old, and thus try to go to seed before they form bulbs?  Any thoughts here?

6 comments:

  1. I have never tried separating out individual plants and replanting them, but I have frequently left onions overwinter in the garden, and they almost always go directly to seed when the weather warms up the second year. At least they look like pretty allium flowers though :)

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  2. I'm new to your blog. I cook with onions all the time, I should try growing them. I love growing organically too. I look forward to reading your posts!

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  3. Thank you George for posting,, i wasn't sure if you could do that or not!

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  4. Will these bulb? I was under the impression that since onions are biennials they'll set seed instead of make bulbs the second year? Best of luck, hope they do. I usually cut the greens up into whatever I'm making.

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  5. I hope they bulb. If the single onion breaks into four new onions, do those onions think they are second year onions? Since I could not find anything on the web it is worth an experiment. Certainly will cut off the seed stalk if it forms. In any case, I should get some nice green onions rather than a mushy bulb.

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  6. Hi George, The pictures of the onions are so pretty that I was reminded to tell you about a website called something like Image to Canvas. I had a really pretty picture of pea vines and flowers growing on a tripod printed on canvas and to me it is fine art hanging on the wall.

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