March is the Time for Planting Onions from Transplants

Plant onions in ammended soils and at the same depth as they were
growing as transplants. You can see where that was on the transplant.
Soil was enhanced with a phosphorus fertilizer.

The middle of March is the time to plant onions and sweet corn. Onions are planted from small plants called transplants. Many onion transplants can be started from seed the previous October or they can be ordered online now from places like Dixondale Farms in Texas. Other places have them as well.

http://www.dixondalefarms.com/



Onion transplants are planted right along side the drip
tubing or drip tape in this case.

 

I like to use mulch for onions growing in the desert. This is straw mulch.
It helps to conserve water and keep the soil moist. Evenly moist soils is
important for good buld development.

This is Walla Walla and typical of the sizes you will get
if you amend desert soils, keep the soil moist and
sidedress with nitrogen once a month.

Don’t worry about getting short day, long day or intermediate – they all work at our latitude including Vidalia, Walla Walla and Sweet Georgia Browns. Some of my favorites have been Texas Super Sweet and Yellow Granex in the short day category and Big Daddy and Walla Walla in the long day category. One of my all-time favorites is Candy and don’t forget Super Star!

Red candy apple onion. Great onion bud does not develop
the same size as Candy, Contessa, Big Daddy and other yellow/white
 onions.

Why grow onions when you can buy them in the store? Because they taste SO much, unbelievably better! You can’t go wrong with any of those I recommended PROVIDED you have prepared your soil ahead of time. I like the soil prepared well enough so that you can dig in it with your hands. Not that you have to, it’s just an indicator that the soil was prepared enough.