Onion (Semi) Disaster

A couple of months ago I had written a post about the onion patch, describing how I was still figuring out the water holding of my soil and had under-watered my main spring-planted onion crop in the weeks after transplanting.  Well, we’re now at the time of year that I should be harvesting these onions, and most of them have barely formed bulbs.   Onions are day length sensitive, and need to begin swelling bulbs while the days are still getting longer.  While they definitely put on more growth, the stress early on seems to have been too much for most of them.

On the bright side, I’m still able to harvest “spring” onions (fresh onions at a stage between scallion and full size), and I did get a good harvest from my extra-early set-grown onions.  They’ve been in the CSA offering four times now, and there are enough curing now for at least three more distributions.  Not the mega harvest I was hoping for, but hey ...not everything can go according to plan.

uneven-onion-growth onion stress early on

"Spring" Onion Bunch“Spring” Onion Bunch

6 Responses to “Onion (Semi) Disaster”

Dan Says:
Jul 23rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm

Those are some beautiful “spring onions”!  Your vegetables are always picture perfect.

Jess Says:
Jul 23rd, 2009 at 7:36 pm

Aw, I’m sorry about the “disaster” but the spring onions are gorgeous. We’ve also been selling fresh onions for 5 or so weeks now and they’re going like hotcakes. I can’t wait for the red onions to get done!

Drew Says:
Jul 24th, 2009 at 5:26 am

Jealous!  We’d love to see them in our CSA box (incoming, not outgoing - Farmers supporting farmers!) but they are not there yet.

Dan, the kids, and I go through 10 onions a week.  We’d eat more if we could get ones that look like yours, Eddie!

janet czarnecki Says:
Jul 24th, 2009 at 6:48 pm

most things do NOT go according to “plan”!

Lisa Lee Says:
Jul 25th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

Hey there its the cashier at MR Gardens. You are not the only one having this problem this year….sorry to hear it!

Eddie Says:
Jul 26th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

Thank you for the encouragement Drew & Dan!  I’ve been really enjoying watching the development of your land. - Eddie T

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