The Onion Crop is IN!

I ordered my onions to plant this year in the garden from Dixondale Farms, the same place I mail-ordered them from last year.  You can click on the link underlined below to go to their very helpful website and learn all about planting, growing and harvesting onions.  There is a map on the website that helps you to select the perfect variety or varieties for your growing area.  In Louisiana, you want to select Short-day varieties, so this year I chose a bunch of Red Creole Onions and a bunch of 1015Y Texas Super Sweet Onions.

I received them by mail as they arrived in a box with planting instructions.  Two bunches were inside - just as I ordered.  Now a bunch has between 50-75 plants in it, so if all goes well, we'll have plenty of onions in 2017.  That will be just fine with me as we LOVE onions.  Smothered Onions on top of some hamburger patties cooking in a cast iron skillet is doggone hard to beat!

Red Creole Onions

Our onion crop last year left a lot to be desired.  The ones that we did harvest were small.  I take full responsibility for that and I learned from my mistakes.  Last year I planted the onions in a new area of the garden.  That new area contained topsoil, but it was not improved land like the other parts of the garden.  There was no organic material or compost worked in and the soil was compacted.  It just wasn't a good growing medium for onions.

Onions like loose, crumbly soil and that's just what I gave them this year.  I planted the onions in the soil that I had just turned over after harvesting our sweet potato crop.  There was lots of decaying leaves mixed in the soil and it was black-colored and rich looking.  You can see evidence of that below:

Good Onion Growing Soil

I worked up 3 rows in the old sweet potato patch.  I did leave about a five foot section out on the east side as there was some nice Black Seeded Simpson lettuce growing there that I didn't want to disturb. I planted all of the onion plants following the planting instructions and gently watered them in.  I'll keep them weeded and add some chicken litter to the soil according to the directions given in the growing guide.

I planted these on December 17th, and the Onion Growing Guide says that you can count on 110 days to maturity.  That means on April 7th, 2017, I can count on harvesting some nice onions.  As the harvest date gets closer, I'll do some research on curing and storing them.  We'll probably dice some and freeze them in Ziploc bags as that makes it real convenient when making gumbos and other tasty dishes that use lots of onions.