What is a good overwinter onion?

[T]

Hi All,

What is a good overwinter yellow onion? I am zone 6c.

Many thanks,

-T

[Pavel314]

Hi, T.

I asked my wife, who has been working with overwinter crops for some years now. Here's her reply: "Territorial sells a yellow multiplier onion that has been overwintering for us for years. They are small and make doubles.They also sell seed for supposedly overwintering regular large onions, but none have thrived for us: we're in 7B, Maryland. I'd have thought that would be similar to Oregon's cli= mate where Territorial is, but apparently not."

She also said that the multiplier onions are good when harvested as green onions for salad.

Paul

[T]

Thank you!

[songbird]

i don't really know what you mean by overwinter onion. i suppose i could look that up, but imma not in the mood for that...

for storage or left in the ground?

here onions grow ok and if not careful will spread like the garlic and take over.

i have thousands of seeds from some of the bulbs that have flowered. i only plant a few. they need to be thinned properly to produce well.

if i took those and scattered them around i'd have more onions than i could possibly ever eat.

for an arid climate water is always the limiting factor on producing good topsoil and any veggies it will grow. mulches, wind breaks, some shade during the worst of the season may help increase size of bulbs.

we grow the large yellow onions known as sweet Kelcey or something like that. they get very big and are not super strong. for storage i pull them when they're done and cure them and they keep for several months. we usually use them all up long before they go bad.

songbird

[Pavel314]

Meaning left in the ground over winter to start growing again in the early spring.

[derald]

What is that?

Down here in the sunny short-day south, nearly everything overwinters with little provocation. I plant onion seeds in September or October; transplant them between late November and January, pull them up sometime in May and lJune. This year's were transplanted into beds on 14 January and the last was harvested on 30 May. I find it important to transplant while the sets are truly juvenile and not "too big" because it seems to reduce doubling, to which the variety I grow is inclined. At any rate, I pull them up when most of them are the desired size for the kitchen. Waiting for the tops to fall over or breaking the tops to stop bulb development is, as far as I can tell, pointless. I don't grow sweet onions but grow a short day savory "cooking" cultivar for kitchen use. Not particularly "hot" but they'll really open the sinuses when eaten raw on a 'burger, for example!

[T]

By "over winter", I mean to plant them in the fall. To me "over winter" is CHEATING!!!

What do you mean by "cure them"?

-T

[T]

I was looking to plant mine in a month or two.

Our growing season is from June to October. It is very short. I love to over winter my garlic. Garlic Scapes are my first harvest. Over winter is just CHEATING!!!

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

that is actually how many onions would grow naturally, if you notice how they set seeds and drop them. they start growing in the fall when the rains come and then wait under the snow until it warms up enough to keep on growing. if they get big enough from the previous season they will flower the next. if they aren't large enough then they just form a bulb and wait until the following year.

this is why when buying onion sets you don't get ones that are too large.

after harvesting, i take the roots off and then leave them to air dry for several weeks so the bottoms won't rot if they get stacked together. pretty much the same approach is used for garlic (but the garlic doesn't like being left in the sun, onions don't seem to mind as much). note though that we do not get really hot here in the fall normally so leaving them in the sun is ok, but because of rains i usually just keep them set out on a table in the garage until they get used.

the squash are pretty much the same too. we set them out so they can cure before we stack them in a bin for storage.

songbird

[Frank]

That's what I thought he meant. After I dried them hanging on the deck, I removed as much of the trash as I could and put them in mesh bags, like you buy them in, to hang from the basement ceiling. They kept for months.

[derald]

Seeds? Bulblets ("sets")? Transplants from seeds started elsewhere? I plant seeds for my own transplants New seeds every year. Also grow other onions for their tender tops; they do not make bulbs. Some of those are allowed to bloom. As far as I know, alliums are hardy to temps far lower than occur here. I'd guess that snow cover protects your very early onions from super cold frigid air, wind burn, frostbite, etc.

Do you start many vegies indoors?

[songbird]

if it were to be from seeds they should be planted ASAP as far as i understand things. might even be too late... this month is going too fast.

for sets or transplants it would likely be ok now. some mulch probably a good idea, but as of yet i've not found many alliums to be that picky as long as they don't get dried out completely while frozen (aka freeze dried).

i have some species here that will survive as a very tiny bulb (like the size of a BB - a few mm around) laying on top of the soil all through the winter. snow cover helps but not needed. when you have a few thousand of them you don't get too worried. hard as heck to get rid of once established...

grape hyacynths and purple alliums i have are both tough to get rid of from an area without having to resort to smothering entirely. and i've quarantined the garlic chives (molly) to a spot that they've not yet escaped. *whew* i just have them for the yellow flowers, we don't actually use it for cooking, or at least not yet...

songbird

[T]

I try to in the garage, but I need a growing lamp. I can't gown in the house as a member of my family is super sensitive to the molds in dirt.

[T]

Thank you!

[derald]

Sorry, I mis-typed. I install transplants grown from seed. Within the context of alliums I've always understood "set" to refer specifically to small bulblets grown, cured, possibly "treated" (basically, exposed to fungicide) and stored for the purpose of transplanting. Am I the only one?

[songbird]

that has always been the terminology i've used.

sets are small onions, dried out or they may even be bundles, but dry.

transplants are growing active plants.

i've had some small bundles of transplants too which need to be teased apart and then replanted (not too fond of this approach).

songbird

[Pavel314]

Have you tried making a cold frame? I made some by attaching left-over poly carbonate from the greenhouse construction to 2X2 frames. They're 3' by 4' by 1.5' high. My wife uses them to start plants outdoors early in the seaso n when it's too cold for them to grow unprotected; they work very well. In the linked picture, they're the white cubes out in the garden.

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Paul

[T]

I am not sure I am up to it. I have zero spare time between the business and the family.

We also have hurricane force 1 winds. Two years ago, up to 130 MPH. Leaves blew into chain link fences and made them solid, blowing them across the highways.

[T]

Virtually always die on me when I have tried it. I just plant the whole bunch, see who grow the tallest and use a pair of scissors to cut off the small ones. Make me feel like a murderer. Okay, only a little.

Who the hell ever told plant suppliers that "bare root" was a viable way to ship plants !!! ??? How hard it it to ship a dirt plug?

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

bare root could be a weight/shipping thing to save $ (less weight). also less likely to transport pests/diseases.

but they should be wrapped in something to keep some moisture in there.

songbird