I've never had much trouble growing onions. Even the red ones, that some believe are difficult to grow and keep, usually do well for me.
Not so much this year.
I devote three of my 4' x 8' raised beds to my onion crop. One bed of yellow, one bed of red, and a third to half yellow, half red. That keeps us in onions all the way into spring time when they start to sprout so vigorously that a few end up in the compost bin.
For some mysterious reason, this year the half and half bed died down and the stalks turned completely brown much sooner than the other two beds. So I dug them, brought them in to cure on racks where they've been for about two and a half weeks. I decided today was time to clean them up for the next several months of storage.
Obviously, I knew when they came out of the ground that they weren't of a size that was going to win any blue ribbons at the county fair. (Never mind the fact that we haven't had a county fair in a number of years now.)
They're all small to medium in size, not a big one in the bunch. What went wrong this year? Well, even though I watered with sprinkler or hand-held hose close to daily because of our drought conditions, maybe they simply required the natural rain water that was almost totally lacking. Or was it too hot for them day after brilliantly sunny, scorching day?
I'll probably never know.
Maybe the two beds that still have green, green stalks on them will turn out to have all the large onions hiding just beneath the soil. Or not. And why was this one bed ready well ahead of the other two when all three beds were in much the same location? Questions, questions.
Whatever the final harvest turns out to be, I'll be grateful to have all the onions our garden gives us this year. Small little orbs or otherwise!
13 comments:
It could be the heat and/or faucet water. Or maybe when they were planted? I'm wondering... since onions are day length sensitive, if planted later than normal, maybe they didn't get as much chance to grow before solstice?
Wow! I never thought about growing onions but I should. But the weather has been terriable on garden this year.
JustGail - All good points you raise. They were planted at the same time (relatively) that I always get my onions in. I guess one never knows just exactly how a crop is going to do each year. But we keep trying!
Lisa K Thomasson Jung - I use a lot of onions in cooking and they are one veggie that I know I save A LOT of money by growing our own.
I always thought onions liked it hot. I don't plant any now since I developed an intolerance for eating them. :(
This has been my worst year in the garden. The only thing that really prospered was the cherry tomatoes.
I'm allergic to onions (onions, leeks, even chives) but my mother grows them. They have very sandy soil which keeps moisture for a very long time AND doesn't get soggy if it rains. Their onions are doing ok, our summer was a lot like yours. First it was cold and wet, then hot and dry and now it's really wet and chilly (frost is here). Onions are doing ok, so no record crop but no complete loss either. Last year when it was difficult to get any onions to plant my mother bought onion seeds (they are ment to grow two summers, first you get tiny onions which you plant next spring to get big onions). My patents found out they really liked those tiny onions, so she's growing them again. Even their leeks are doing ok. But our heatwave was only 6 weeks, no ash from forest fires and temps max at 32-34C.
tpals - Bummer #1 is that you can't tolerate onions in your diet anymore. They add so much to any dish they're added to. Bummer #2 is that your garden did so poorly this year. It's such a frustrating situation when you do the work but get little to no production. :o(
Ulvmor - Oh no, another person allergic to onions! (I can't imagine our foods without them.) You have had frost already? Can't tell where you're located by your profile, but frost already is EARLY. I've never started onions from seed but have always felt I need to learn how to do it. Maybe someday.
I agree, they probably didn't like the heat. At least, I can't grow onions in summer; they do better in winter for me. Even so, some year's things do better than other years, and it's often a puzzle as to why.
Very colourful! How do you manage to keep the red ones over winter? I've given up on them, and grow twice as many yellow guys. Onions have to be one of the most used vegetables....Here's hoping there are a lot of big ones hiding just beneath the soil.
My garden was, just to put it mildly, crap this year. I think you're onto something with the onions and heat. My onion crop was a miserable failure, too. Right when they should have been getting ready to go to bulbs, it was baking hot and dry. Everything else suffered, too.
I have never liked heat! As I age, it is easier - way easier! - to find an excuse to head in and read for an hour during the hot part of the day. And yes, here we have extreme heat and cold. It is a crazy place to live, but we like it that way. It keeps out the 'riff raff' as they say, in jest. Cheers!
I live in Northern Europe and yes, we did have early frost. Have you ever tried those Walking Egyptian onions?
Leigh - When I think of the big onions I regularly get in our cool summers, it makes a lot of sense that this terribly HOT summer just past did a number of my crop.
Rosalea - I know red onions supposedly don't keep as well as yellow ones, but -- what can I say? -- mine keep just as well as the yellow ones through no talent of my own! They're all stored in our dry basement which stays right around 52° all winter. I put them in a milk crate so they get lots of ventilation.
Tim - We found we simply HAD to go inside to cool off and rest during the hottest parts of the day this summer. We may have croaked if we hadn't. We find lots of folks think this is a great place to live -- in the summer. But (haha) one winter and they change their minds. Ya gotta be tough. And have good long underwear. Each spring we see lots of backpackers coming into the area who want to "get away" and "worship in the wilderness." (A friend always calls them the Easter Bananas.) But come Jack Frost time, you see them heading southward. In a hurry.
Ulvmor - And I thought we sometimes got an early frost! Yes, I have a couple of patches of Walking Egyptian onions in my garden given to me by our good neighbor. Can't say I'm particularly fond of them, but as my husband says, I need to be nice to them as them come back year after year and we'd be glad to have them in a pinch!
our onions were small also. I thought it was the sets we planted, but maybe not?
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