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Onions Freeze Tolerance

15 years ago

How freeze tolerant are onions. Me and a friend of mine both plavted our onion transplants on Thanksgiving weekend. A few weeks later we had a freeze. My onions did fine but my friend says that the tops look like they froze. He is figuing the temp got down to around the mid to upper 20's overnight. I have never had a problem with my onions freezing. What are the possibility that they will come back?

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sandy0225

15 years ago

I don't know about how good it'd be to grow them for eating purposes, but I have an onion patch now that I started several years ago. I had a regular old yellow spanish onion that was sprouting pretty good. I felt sorry for it and put it outside in early spring, just plunked it into the flower bed, thinking I'd have early green onion from it.
Well I forgot about it, and later on that summer it bloomed. It looked kind of pretty so I just left it.
Well the next year it came up and the year after and now it's grown into a clump about a foot across and it blooms every late spring/early summer.
We live in z5 Indiana, so I guess if they make it here from year to year with no help whatsoever and in partial shade, yours will probably be fine, I expect.
The other funny part is when customers come over to the pond display, they usually comment on the "allium" when it's blooming.

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Comments (6)

shebear
15 years ago
I've never had a problem with them freezing up here in Dallas area. Sometimes the tops look like they froze but they don't turn black after it warms up.

We plant onions every fall and harvest the end of January or beginning of February and I can't remember seeing any that looked like they froze. January and February are our cold, wet months and we often get snow and ice then.
TJG911
15 years ago
i'm in connecticut, i put mine out around 4/20. we get frosts and freezes sometimes. i never had any problems. now if it went to 20 or lower i am not sure what to expect, at 10-15 i think they'd die but 25 to 32 is not too cold for my location.

i am also growing long day onions so maybe day short onions, assuming you are growing them vs day neutral, would not tolerate those temps. i can't say for sure.

tom
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baygrower
15 years ago
I plant my fall onions in maryland sept 14 or so last ten years.They wont grow much during winter but i use in thanksgiving stuffing and pick as scallions throughout winter.Sometimes hard to pick when ground frozen but they start growing in spring.My spring onions are the ones i dry for storage,they grow march to june-july.My leeks grow threw winter as well.
watermelon7
15 years ago
Usually top-setting onions are more cold tolerant for some reason. Tell him to try something like Egyptian onion.
caren-2009
15 years ago
Hey Snappybob! One time I asked an older/more experienced farmer dude about my onion tops turning brown(It was from our drought)and he said"Just cut off the brown part and let'em go!"It won't hurt a thang-use the 4 Ds-cut off any DEAD,DAMAGED,DISEASE,OR DYING stuff and that works for all kinds of plants.Good luck to your garden!

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