Its onion planting time
Garden Clippings for April 15, 2023
If the recipe calls for white onions, I don’t discriminate, thinking any onion will do the trick. But fussy cooks know there is a difference between onion and onion.
Yellow onions are the most popular and most widely grown. Hence their lower price. If lucky in late fall I will find a 10 pound bag of Ontario grown yellow onions on sale for just a few dollars, and I will put them in the bottom of the pantry where they will remain firm until May, at which time the bag will be empty.
Yellow onions are great for cooking into tomato sauces, stews and soups. They will tear up my eyes quicker than the other onions, and will store at room temperature for a long time. Yellow onions don’t grow large, ranging from golf balls to tennis balls at maturity.
Red onions are best for eating raw. Not like an apple, but sliced thin and used in salads, on sandwiches and certainly added to the bun of barbequed burgers. Use red onions for guacamole spread and pickled onions.
White onions are crunchy with a sharp zing. Use white onions for chutneys, salsas and stir frying. At our dinner table stir fry dishes are our go-to suppertime meal, and I will often substitute yellow onions when white onions aren’t in the pantry, but I can sure detect the difference.
Spanish onions or sweet onions are great for frying, for roasted veggies or for onion rings, which I have never attempted to cook up. Spanish onions are large, often about the size of a softball, very watery and sweet. Because of their high water content, they don’t last as long in the pantry.
Multiplier onions, sometimes called Potato onions, produce multiple offsets all summer long. Multipliers are wonderful for spring onion shoots and pickling onions.
Shallots grow and multiply producing small bulbs most often used for spring green onions. Great for adding mild flavor to salads or for chopping up to garnish sour cream for baked potatoes.
The easiest way to plant onions is to buy started sets, often called Dutch sets, and planting in early spring. Onions are a two-season crop, with growers sowing seeds in the previous year for spring planting. Sets are miniature bulbs about the diameter of a nickel.
Prepare the soil bed by working up the soil early in spring as soon as the ground can be worked up. Space the onion sets 4 or 5 inches apart and only one inch deep. Onions like sunshine, heat and a steady supply of water. If rain is scarce water once a week. Onions planted in April should be ready to harvest in 12 to 14 weeks.
Onion roots, being shallow and easy to upset, don’t like to be disturbed by weeds. A layer of straw or mulch will keep weeds at bay, but if weeds appear, remove them when young rather than disrupting the soil by pulling large weeds.
If you are up for it, onions are not difficult to grow from seed. Start seeds early in the calendar year, providing heat and light to the seed bed. Seedlings will be ready to plant outdoors when soil warms up in May. The advantage to starting seeds indoors is price and selection.
To store onions, your best bet is to keep them exposed to air rather than piling them up on a heap. Open crates are a good idea, providing ventilation from both top and bottom. A dry shed, garage or basement is just fine, keeping them free from frost and moisture.
