Gardening 101: Planting Onions from Sets

I just finished planting some onions. The first sets of the season. You can start planting onions about now - they can tolerate some frost and will be ready in about 6 to 8 weeks for you to enjoy them. My goal is to plant a few onions (18 to be exact in 2 squares) every 2 weeks, that way I will have a continuous supply of onions from mid spring until the fall.

This year I am planting red and white onions. This lot is only red onions as my white onion sets did not survived the winter and dried out. I missed my chance of doing seeds (I kept them from last year) as they are very slow to grow ad I should have started them in February.

So here is what you do. Get your square and be ready to plant 9 onions in 3 rows of 3.

Open the 9 small holes in the ground and place the 9 onion sets with the bottom (or rounder part down).

Cover the onion set but not completely, make sure that you can still see the top of it. This is very important, if you bury the onion, you will not get onion you will get green onions (the leafy type - the bulb will not grow into an onion)

remember to water the squares after you are done planting! Water if needed daily (if it rains you are OK not t water). Soon you will see the green leaves coming from the exposed tops.

Red onions are delicious raw in salads as they are milder than other varieties and they give salads a nice color!

I will be posting photos of progress, so check back  soon!

If you like this post you may also like my Gardening 101 series:
First outdoor planting
Preparing the soil