Hi All,

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

Many thanks,
-T

On Monday, October 9, 2017 at 3:59:43 PM UTC-4, T wrote:
Hi All,

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

Many thanks,
-T

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

On 10/09/2017 07:36 PM, Pavel314 wrote:
On Monday, October 9, 2017 at 3:59:43 PM UTC-4, T wrote:
Hi All,

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

Many thanks,
-T

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



Thank you!

T wrote:
Hi All,

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

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

On Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 8:41:30 AM UTC-4, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
Hi All,

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

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?



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




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

On 10/11/2017 05:40 AM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
Hi All,

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

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


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

On 10/11/2017 08:35 AM, wrote:
T wrote:

What is a good overwinter yellow onion?

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!


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!!!

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

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.


What do you mean by "cure them"?

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

On 10/11/2017 2:53 PM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
...
By "over winter", I mean to plant them in the fall.
To me "over winter" is CHEATING!!!

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.


What do you mean by "cure them"?

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


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.

wrote:
T wrote:

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

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.

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...


Our growing season is from June to October.

Do you start many vegies indoors?


songbird

On 10/11/2017 05:01 PM, wrote:
Our growing season is from June to October.
Do you start many vegies indoors?

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.

On 10/11/2017 11:53 AM, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
...
By "over winter", I mean to plant them in the fall.
To me "over winter" is CHEATING!!!

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.


What do you mean by "cure them"?

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



Thank you!

wrote:
wrote:

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

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?

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

On Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 10:03:46 AM UTC-4, T wrote:
On 10/11/2017 05:01 PM, wrote:
Our growing season is from June to October.
Do you start many vegies indoors?

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.

Have you tried making a cold frame? I made some by attaching left-over polycarbonate 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 season 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.

http://s1346.photobucket.com/user/pa...tml?sort=3&o=0

Paul

On 10/13/2017 06:17 AM, Pavel314 wrote:
On Thursday, October 12, 2017 at 10:03:46 AM UTC-4, T wrote:
On 10/11/2017 05:01 PM, wrote:
Our growing season is from June to October.
Do you start many vegies indoors?

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.

Have you tried making a cold frame? I made some by attaching left-over polycarbonate 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 season 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.

http://s1346.photobucket.com/user/pa...tml?sort=3&o=0

Paul


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.