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My Onion Growing Journey 🧅

Updated: Apr 4

Onions are one of those vegetables that our family enjoys in every meal. It wasn't until my 4th year of gardening that I was successful in growing onions. I attempted growing them from bulbs, transplants, and seeds and found that two of the three methods worked best for me.


Here's a run down of the methods I attempted to grow onions:



Onion Bulbs


I began my experimentation with growing onions when I came across onion bulbs at Home Depot and Lowes. Spring is usually the time when you'll find them on sale in your local nursery and box stores. The bag of approximately 20-30 onion sets were only $3-$5, which seemed like a deal since mature onions are sold around $1 per pound in USD. I watched YouTube videos for growing onion bulbs, and the only thing I remembered was the emphasis on spacing between onions, and the quality of the soil. That year, I planted these in my wooden raised beds and grow bags.


After a few months of sitting in the soil, the only thing that came from them was an onion sprout which resembled scallions from the grocery store. This was discouraging, as I put so much effort into making sure they had quality soil, proper spacing, and allowed them to occupy much of my gardening space without a return on investment of time and space. I attempted this method later on in the fall season with the same results and became discouraged even more from growing onions using the bulb method.


Onion Transplants


After multiple failures of growing onions from bulbs, I researched ways to successfully grow onions. During my research I learned about the lifecycle of an onion and how long it actually takes an onion to grow from seed. I stumbled across another method of growing onions from onion transplants. Onion transplants basically look like a shorter version of scallions, and can be found at your local nursery or big box store like Home Depot and Lowes.


I transplanted these onion plants in my community garden plot which has a larger space and is exposed to full sun all day. I followed all the same steps used for spacing and added bone meal amendments to the soil for root development. I watered the onions once a week and would fertilize with fish emulsion fertilizer bi-weekly.


After about four months, I was able to harvest mature and juicy looking onions from my community garden plot! I repeated this method of growing onions from onion transplants the following year and had the same success.


Onion Seeds `


My newest method of starting onions, which I'm growing to love, is from seed. Growing onions from seed requires the most patience, as onions take a very long time to grow from seed. I attempted to grow onions from seed last year and found that I didn't start my onions early enough to allow them time to mature. This year I was determined to grow all my onions from seed and to not buy transplants.


To prevent getting a late start, I started my onions from seed in December 2023. Initially everything was off to a great start, then things took a turn when I tried to fertilize my young onion seedlings with diluted fish emulsion fertilizer while the onion seedlings were still on the heat mat. That's when I lost half of my seedlings. I almost called it quits as this was in early February, but I was determined to see things through and I re-sowed more onion seeds.


Although I'm in early April now, my seedlings are not as large as I would have liked for them to be at this point. They are however big enough to transplant into the ground with hopes of harvesting them in early to mid summer.



Here's what I learned from growing onions:


  • Growing onions is a long game that requires you to utilize a large space for a long period of time.

  • Onions transplants are resilient. Whether growing from seed, or transplant, the roots are forgiving when disturbing them and pulling them apart from one another.

  • When planting onions from seed, it's ok to plant them densely in one seedling tray or pot. Again, onion transplants are resilient when the roots are pulled apart from one another.

  • Choose the appropriate onion variety for your grow zone. There's short day onion varieties that grow best in southern U.S. states, indeterminate varieties that grow in the middle region of the country, and long day onion varieties that grow best in the northern states.

  • There are more varieties to choose from when purchasing seeds as opposed to onion transplant varieties available to you at Home Depot and Lowes.

  • If you're planning to store onions to use later, choose long term storage varieties of seeds.

  • Trimming your onion seedlings when growing from seed promotes growth.



On Final Lesson Learned!


The most important thing I learned from this whole process is to try, try, try again. As with anything in life, practice makes perfect. Gardening is one big experiment of trials and error. Sometimes you get it right the first time, and sometimes it takes you multiple attempts. All in all, the moral of this story is to never give up, ESPECIALLY when gardening.


I hope to provide another success story from growing my onions from seed this year and will be sure to provide an update!


Happy Gardening!


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