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Vegetable Gardening

All these onion transplants!

15 years ago

I ordered DixonDale's short-day onion sampler and they arrived Monday. I've finally gotten my bins set up and will plant them this afternoon.

I ordered "1 bunch" of the short-day sampler (Texas Supersweet yellow, Contessa white, and Southern Belle Red). Their literature says 1 bunch is "at least" 5 dozen transplants. Okay, that's 60 transplants or maybe a little more and quite enough for us.

Well, in preparation for planting them, I separated at least 80 reds and 45 yellows and 70 whites!!!!! Daggone if that isn't nearly 200 plants altogether!!!!!

Talk about an embarrassment of riches! and what am I going to do with all these onion transplants? The only way I can plant them all is to plant them 2" apart and begin thinning them for spring onions as soon as they start to grow. The mature onions will end up with 4" spacing instead of the five inches I wanted, but guess I'll have to live with it. I'd wanted mature onions from this project, not dozens of spring onions, but I guess I've got 'em whether I want them or not.

Think this spacing will work? Will they be misshapen? What else can I do with the transplants? My garden soil is heavy clay and there isn't time or money to amend it for onions.

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Comments (3)

justaguy2
15 years ago
That's Dixondale for ya, always screwing over the customer with too many plants :) LOL.

Why not plant some in your clay soil? They might surprise you with how well they do. Onions can actually grow mostly on top of the soil (the bulb, not the roots). You could just bust up the top 2-3 inches in a strip 6" wide, amend with nothing and plant.

At least you wouldn't be potentially limiting bulb size by cramming them into containers.
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anney
Original Author
15 years ago
Yes, those folks as Dixondale sure do know how to mess their customers over! I don't know of many gardeners who have to scramble because they received (many) more plants than they ordered. Furthermore, I placed the order on Thursday and they arrived on Monday, four days later including the weekend, when I didn't expect them until later. Have you ever HEARD of such goings-on! Now, I will say that some of the transplants are pretty small, but I think they make fine mature onions, too.

I'm thinking of other places I might plant onions, maybe some of them as a backdrop for the flowerbed in front. I don't think anybody from the road would recognize that they're onions with the flowers there. That soil has some nice amendments, too.

I'll do SOMETHING.

I'll have to!
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bella_trix
15 years ago
My recommendation is to plant most of the onions as you had planned with the five inch spacing. I found mine did much better with six inches between than with four inches. For the rest of the onions, plant them in a separate area very closely together, maybe an inch apart? In one square foot, I put three little rows of 7-8 onion seedlings per row. I then used these for green onions. As the season progressed, the remaining onions (you can only eat so many green onions) formed miniature bulbs and were absolutely perfect as pearl onions. I cured them like the regular onions and the kept well.

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