Short-day Onion “Sets”
Question from Kenny:
I have several thousand short-day sets from DVG for my first trial planting. Would you like 60 or so (about 8oz’s to trial in your S-CAL garden? I would be glad to share these few with you. More if you need more
Answer from Pat:
Yes I remember you and many thanks for your kind offer but I have already planted my vegetable garden and it is full up. It is small-space now—just a raised bed— and filled with my winter crops: cole crops including broccoli, cauliflower, and collards, (parsley and sage left from summer) 1 white and two red potatoes, and Sugar Snap Peas—all of which I planted over three weeks ago just before leaving on vacation. In January I will purchase a few bare-root Texas Grano from one of our local nurseries. January is the right month for planting bare-root, short-day onions here and November is the time to plant them from seeds. If we plant short-day onions now in November we must plant from seed, I am not sure sets will work the same, and anyway I don’t have room for this right now. The reason we plant from seeds now is that the temperature and day-length will stimulate leafy growth throughout winter and then later will stimulate the plants to make a big bulb in June with a thin top that will fall over. Then we stop watering, the bulbs dry off and they will keep well. I will put the bare-root Texas Grano or Granex in at the correct time for bareroot—which is January— as soon as I harvest out the cauliflowers. I love home-grown cauliflower, but as you know it’s just a one-time thing and then one must pull out the root and compost it but this will give me space for planting the onions at just the right time. With brocolli you can harvest out the center and then continue harvesting side sprouts all winter until time to plant the summer crops. Collards also continue bearing leaves all winter. I like homegrown mustard too but had no room for it this year.
Regarding the correct timing for planting short-day onions here I learned this many years ago from a smart ex-farmer who watched what they do in the onion fields adjacent to his Vista, California garden and then he did the same in his own garden. By learning things like this from experts I have been able to put many little-known facts into my books and thus help many home gardeners enjoy success instead of failure.
Being a farmer yourself I am sure you agree with me that timing is half the battle in growing vegetables. We must adhere to the correct timing for our state or region and obey the planting dates. Since the temperatures in northeast Texas are different than here, so are the planting dates. Also, I do not believe that sets of short-day onions would mature correctly here. These are as you know biennial plants. If they have already made a bulb one year (this year) I think they will not do that again but instead will flower and go to seed next year or in other words bolt. Nonetheless, if you want to send me just 1 (no more!) sets, I can plant that one and see what happens as an experiment. As you know, before you straightened me out I thought it was impossible to make a set of a short-day onion because they grow all winter when planted from seeds here in fall and they don’t ever go naturally dormant here as long-day or medium-day length onions will do in cold-winter climates. You explained to me that farmers can force short-day onions to make sets by growing them with tight spacing, but I didn’t know this before and I am not sure what effect it will have on the growth of the big bulb.
What are your average winter temperatures? How much rain falls in winter where you live? And when do you plan to plant? I live in a frost-free climate here where cool-season crops continue to grow all winter long, so I think conditions are different. Thanks so much for writing.
Pat.
Our average winter lows are 32 in mid January to Mid February. In a normal year it can get is in the upper teens but I have seen a low as cold as 10 maybe twice in 40 years.
We get rain and some freezing rain but it don’t snow much. It is a holiday when it does.
Cool weather crops normely do very well in the open and very well in unheated high and low poly tunnels. Last year almost everything in the open was freeze damaged by a spell in the low teens.
I goofed up and sent another reply on the 1 bulb onion in “Ask Pat” before checking in here.
All my sets are in the ground and the first ones out have leaves. I planted 30 bunches of 1015Y slips that were seeded August 29 in Carizzo Springs TX. half in the open and half in a low tunnel. Kenny
Will it show up here?
Your onion bulb is on the way. It is joined by a few companion bulbs to share with your friends and neighbors. Plant them as soon as possible after recieving them. I’m sure they will do just fine if not growth checked by low temps or drouth. Good Luck and Happy Holidays. Remember the song “I’m a loneley little petunia in a onion patch” and all I do is cry all day. Well I hope the onion bulb you are going to plant don’t feel as bad as as that petunia and decides to cry all by itself. “I’m a lonly little onion in a petunia patch.
Thank you so much for the onion sets that arrived today. I have a little space since I planted 3 potatoes—1 white, 2 pink— then left on vacation. The two pink ones are up one whole foot. The white one rotted in the ground. I will dig out the rotted potato and any soil around it that might be contaminated and I have room there to plant a handful of onions properly spaced. It will be interesting to see how they do, since these are sets and planted in fall, quite a change of system for me. Yes I will let you know how they do. These sets are most interesting, since the sets are elongated. Also, as you know sets of short day onions are not available here in California. I also saw your note inside the box and will follow your directions. I am going to leave here tomorrow morning (Thanksgiving day) for my younger daughter’s home, only twenty minutes drive away but a little farther from the ocean than my garden. This daughter, Wendy, is a gardener too and grew super Short Day onions last year. You can see me harvest one of them on one of my videos here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAd_jPW92DU. I will give her some of these sets to try out. She has more space than I have. I only have one raised bed but Wendy has several. I used to have a large vegetable garden but I could no longer keep it up due to bad knees and general aging. Anyway, I am very grateful for your kind gift and glad to have your address too. I will save a few of the sets for my daughter Fran who went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving with her younger daughter and one grandchild. (She has more grandchildren in Spain but they are not arriving until Christmas.) Tomorrow I will try to help Wendy cook her Thanksgiving dinner. I will take a walk around here in the morning and then if Wendy won’t let me help cook, I can help by holding babies. We have just had twins in our family (which adds up to 7 great grandchildren for me.) This is the first time this family has visited us us since the twins arrived, though we have visited them. My granddaughter with twins and her husband and other two children live in Hollywood and they plan to start out early and drive down. We are hoping traffic won’t be too awful. Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have family to be with and that you are really not going to cry all day like that lonesome little onion in the petunia patch!!!!”
(Surely those petunias ought to kiss that poor little onion’s tears away.)
I am happy that the funny looking little “Sets” found their way to your door OK. Be sure to carefuly orient them exactly as the grew when planting. Sharp Pointed end up. A globe onion set is torpedo shaped. A flat onion set is almost perfectly round. I hope they all make wonderful softball size sweet onions when mature and the necks soften and the tops fall over. Remember the rule that the number of the leaf count is the number of onion rings. You may be suprized how thick the neck can get as the larger bulbs mature. Don’t worry over it. It will shrink down to almost nothing in the cureing process. I like to cure my bulbs roots up and tops down between slats of 1×2 lumber spaced about a inch apart. I have a open sided shed with plenty ventilation where my drying racks are located. I picked up another crate of 30 bunches of Dixondale slips yesterday. I chose the Yellow Granex this time. The label states that this is the variety grown in Georga to produce the famous Vidalia Onion. Actually just one of the varieties. I have been in contact with 2 of the “Vidalia” growers and they tell me there are actually about 20 sweet onion cultivars approved by the Vidalia Committee that can be called a “Vidalia Onion”. I plan to grow all these “Vidalias” off in a low poly tunnel in some rich composted soil. I plan to do everything possible to keep them growing steady by protecting them from freezing temps. My irrigation water is a mild 64 degrees right out of the well. It’s just about time to sit down with family and enjoy a roasted turkey with all the trimings, so, Good Day for now and enjoy watching you little sets grow to big sweet onions.