There's a reason so many recipes call for onions--the flavor boost from this vegetable simply can't be beat. Plus, onions are low in calories and provide fiber, vitamins, and other important nutrients, including disease-fighting chemicals.
How to Grow Onions
This easy-to-grow plant produces one of the earliest crops of the year. It prefers cool weather, but tolerates a range of climates.
The long and short of it. Onions generally can be divided into two groups--long- and short-day varieties.
- Long-day onions require 14 to 16 hours of sunlight, are planted in spring and do best in the North.
- Short-day onions need 12 hours of daylight, are suited to warmer Southern gardens, and can be planted from seed in fall, or as plants or dry bulblets, or sets, in late winter or early spring--the easiest method.
The right conditions. Onions need sun and good, fertile, well-draining soil. Plant sets an inch apart for green onions, or four inches for slicing onions. Water regularly, add mulch, and keep weeds out--they compete with onions for nutrients.
Ripe for the picking. Harvest slicing onions when the tops are about six inches tall, or wait for the tops to fall, then pull the bulbs out. Leave them on the soil for a day or so, then gather them.
Contact your local garden center or horticulture extension office to find out what grows best in your own backyard.
From Backyard Living magazine. Subscribe to this and other publications here.
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