Planting onions (sets, wild oats) in the fall before winter - timing, technology

In Russia it is difficult to find a vegetable farm or personal plot where onions are not grown. This biennial plant is widely used for preparing first and second courses, and the green onion is a supplier of the first vitamins in early spring. It is common knowledge that onions are traditionally planted in the spring, but the bulbs can be placed in the garden bed in the fall. Both terms have strengths and weaknesses. How to properly plant onions in autumn before winter on turnips is described in this article.

Advantages and disadvantages of autumn planting

Typically, onions are planted after the spring snowmelt. Onions are included in the list of cold-resistant crops, which makes it possible to plant them in early spring, as soon as positive temperatures are established.

Experienced vegetable growers often start planting in the fall. This technology has many advantages, but there are also weaknesses.

Pros:

1. In the autumn, the gardener is not very busy. By planting bulbs in the fall, the spring workload is reduced.
2. In the spring of next year, winter onions will outgrow spring onions by 20 days or more. At the zenith of July, the crop completely vacates the occupied area. In this place, before the end of the season, you can grow another crop with a short growing season.
3. If you use the smallest planting fraction, wild oats, for autumn planting, you don’t have to worry about the spring shooting of onions. Using large fractions for autumn planting can lead to premature frond formation.
4. Pests are not as active in autumn as in summer. In the short remaining warm period, the onion fly and other pests will not cause significant damage.
5. Insidious diseases - gray rot, powdery mildew in the fall are not as dangerous as in the summer.
6. When spring comes, planting autumn onions quickly grows green feathers, takes over space and suppresses weeds.
7. Winter-planted onions produce higher quality and higher yields.
8. Onions planted in the fall receive a lot of moisture from the snow that melts in the spring. It needs to be watered less.
9. Bulbs obtained from winter sowing are stored quite well in winter, but spring onions are stored better.

Minuses:

1. it is difficult to guess the best planting date;
2. there is a need to cover the beds from freezing during the cold period;
3. it is necessary to increase the landing rate by 15%;
4. Winter onions are stored worse than spring onions.

Prevention of bolting and diseases

The following measures are necessary to prevent diseases and prevent bulbs from bolting in the spring

To prevent shooting

• Dip the bulbs in a warm solution of potassium permanganate (50-60°C) for 20 minutes, when planting, pour hot water into the grooves
• In order for the seedlings not to go to waste, they need to be warmed up well at a temperature of 50-60°C before planting. I usually hang it in a canvas bag near the battery for 2-3 days, so that the bag does not touch the battery. It dries out at the same time.

For disease prevention

• Treatment with the drug “Maxim”, “Fitosporin” according to the instructions. Immerse the seed in a saline solution (1 tablespoon of salt per 1 liter of water) for 3 hours, then in a saturated solution of potassium permanganate for 3 hours.

Dry bulbs withstand sudden cold spells better than swollen bulbs, and the latter may begin to germinate too quickly.

Winter onion varieties

Not the entire varietal list is suitable for planting before winter. For planting, the most frost-resistant varieties are selected, capable of withstanding a cold winter without consequences, and with the onset of warming, quickly growing leaves.

The list of frost-resistant varieties includes:

• Stuttgarter Riesen;
• Ruby;
• Arzamas;
• Buran;
• Bessonovsky;
• Lugansk;
• Strigunovsky;
• Chalcedony;
• Danilovsky;
• Siberian.

Important! Winter onion varieties used for planting in northern regions cannot be planted in the south. And varieties cultivated in the south are not planted where there are severe winters.

Before winter, it is allowed to use different types of material for planting. Planting turnip sets before winter is cultivated. Nigella is also sown in autumn. It can be sown later than sowing, at the end of November, in an already frozen layer of soil. For ease of sowing, under such conditions, seed furrows must be made in advance.

What varieties to plant in the fall

If you take the first onion variety you come across in the store and plant it before winter, most likely nothing good will come of it. You can sow nigella and zoned varieties without any problems, but if you are not satisfied with them in some way, you can look at our selection:

• Shakespeare - does not store very well, but the onion is large;
• Red Baron - stores well, has a good taste, spicy;
• Ellan - sweetish, stores well;
• Danilovsky - good for everyone, but the bulbs are small;
• Raider - excellent shelf life and taste;
• Arzamas - a little shallow, but otherwise good;
• Strigunovsky - characteristics are approximately similar to Arzamassky.

Pay attention to zoning, do not buy varieties zoned for the South, if you live in the Moscow region or the Urals, nothing good will come of it.

Landing dates

Planting of seedlings in the fall must be done under certain conditions, before frost. In many regions of the country, planting is carried out in October. The time must be chosen so that before frost the onions grow roots, but do not have time to form feathers.

How can I more accurately determine the planting date?

To accurately determine the landing moment, temperature indicators should be continuously monitored. When the air temperature is +5 degrees for about a week in a row and, according to weather forecasters, greater cold temperatures are expected, this is exactly the moment when the landing should be carried out.

Only zoned varieties should be planted, with a dormant period from December 16 to January 15. The set used for planting should have a diameter of about 1 cm.

There is no need to plant the bulbs in the soil too early or too late. The planted bulbs must have time to send out roots and not have time to resume leaf growth. Otherwise, the plantings will freeze out during the cold season. It has been established that from the day of planting until the roots of the bulb appear, a little more than 2 weeks pass.

The main indicators for identifying the planting date in any area are the climatic features of the region and the weather in the fall:

• in regions where there is a mild winter, the planting procedure is performed at the end of October or at the beginning of November;
• in other regions you should wait until the temperature drops to +5 degrees.

Important! You should not worry too much if the onion manages to grow a feather up to 1.5 cm long in the fall. However, if the feather grows 5 cm or more, such an onion is unlikely to survive the winter.

Planting dates in different regions

Weather characteristics in the regions are not the same. Therefore, the timing of disembarkation varies greatly.

1. Ural . Before winter, onions in the Urals are planted at the end of September or at the beginning of the next month. Winters there are harsh, so the most frost-resistant varieties are planted. Late disembarkation is fraught with unpleasant consequences; even in the south of the region, snow sometimes falls in October.
2. Siberia . Due to severe frosts, planting onions before winter in Siberia is risky. But even in this area, by correctly guessing the planting date, planting frost-resistant varieties and making a warm cover for the beds, you can achieve a decent result. The procedure should be completed before the end of September.
3. Moscow region . Planting onions before winter in the Moscow region is planned from October 5 to October 25. In this climate zone, winters are quite snowy, and onions do not freeze.
4. South of Russia, Ukraine . For these areas, it is customary to plant onions from October 20 to mid-November.
5. Leningrad region, Belarus . In these areas, winters are not accompanied by severe frosts. Onions are planted from the beginning of October until the end of the first ten days of the next month. There is about a month left until the frosty period.

Important! When planting in autumn, it is important that the bulbs do not end up in warm soil. The soil layer must be cool.

Obtaining planting material

You don't have to buy Chernushka. Onion seeds are easy to obtain yourself. For this purpose, the largest and healthiest turnips are selected from last year's harvest.

Selected material is planted in autumn or spring. In mid-summer, the plants will shoot arrows. The inflorescences contain many dark brown or black seeds.

They ripen unharmoniously. Therefore, after the first black seeds appear, the umbrellas are wrapped in gauze or stocking so as not to lose part of the planting material. When the seeds are ripe, they are collected, laid out on paper and allowed to dry for several days.

Some vegetable growers use another method: they cut off the umbrellas with still green seeds and leave them in the sun for 10–14 days. During this time, the material will fully ripen.

Attention! To obtain planting material, the largest and healthiest turnips are used, which were not sick during cultivation. Their seeds are characterized by increased germination, high resistance to diseases and negative environmental factors.

Variety selection

Most crop varieties are suitable for planting in late autumn and early winter. However, for the northern and central regions of Russia it is better to choose winter-hardy plants.

The varieties described are resistant to cold snaps and can withstand even the coldest winters.

Preparing for sowing

To grow strong and healthy onions, it is important to properly prepare the planting material. First, make sure of its germination:

1. The seeds are sorted and divided into groups according to size. Large specimens germinate a week earlier than small ones.
2. Several seeds from each batch are laid out on gauze, which is used to cover a saucer. It is moistened with water, the material is covered with another layer of fabric and put in a warm place. Moisten with warm liquid as it dries.
3. When the seeds germinate, count the number of sprouted specimens. If more than 30% germinated, the batch is suitable for cultivation.

The remaining seeds that were not germinated are prepared for winter planting . For this:

1. The seeds are immersed in water. After an hour, the specimens remaining on the surface are collected and soaked for another hour, and those that float are thrown away. Nigella that sank to the bottom during the first and second soaking is suitable for planting.
2. Planting material is disinfected by soaking for 2 hours in a light pink solution of potassium permanganate.
3. Nigella is immersed in water at a temperature of +50°C for half an hour. After this, soak for another 2 hours in aloe juice, diluted with an equal amount of water.
4. The prepared seeds are dried, spread out in 1 layer in a warm place.

You cannot dry nigella on a radiator. Extreme heat will cause the seeds to overheat and not germinate.

Site selection, predecessors

Onions love sunny, dry areas. Beds where water stagnates are completely unacceptable. If the entire dacha plot is located in a low place, you need to form high beds by adding additional soil.

It is better to place the garden bed on the southern slope of the site. This way the plants will be protected from the piercing wind. Drained humus-loamy soils are optimal for onion plantings.

To obtain a good harvest, it is important to observe crop rotation.

Table. Predecessors for the bow

Important! Onions can be returned to their original place no earlier than after 4 years.

Conveyor method of growing onions for greens

Thanks to the variety of species and the possibilities of year-round forcing of onions, you can get fresh aromatic greens not only at the beginning of summer. The earliest and most long-awaited harvest in the open ground is produced by unpretentious and hardy perennial onions. On my site, in the highest sunny place (where the snow melts first), there is a rectangular plantation of perennial onions. The small collection consists of: narrow-leaved chives “Honey plant”, slimy onions “Leader” with long flat feathers, funny multi-tiered onions, two varieties of fragrant onions (“Fromatic”, “Benefit”) with flat delicate leaves and a piquant garlic taste. But the largest area is reserved for the most popular type of perennial onion in home cooking - the batun, which produces large, long, juicy leaves (“Tenderness”, “April”, “Krasavchik”). To speed up the growth of greenery in early spring, after the onion plantation is cleared of snow cover, I water the plantings with a solution of liquid fertilizer based on manure. Then I install a shelter made of lutrasil. By the end of May, when perennial onions throw out flower shoots and their greenery becomes coarser, I cut off the above-ground part of the plants, leaving stumps about three centimeters high. I add a little compost between the rows, water it generously, and after a week I feed it with water-soluble complex fertilizer. During the summer, caring for perennial onions comes down to weeding, watering, shallow loosening and removing flower stalks to avoid self-seeding.

I would like to especially highlight one type of perennial onion, which not only grows freely, but also has the honor of being a “retinue” of the royal evergreen rhododendrons. Bear onion or wild garlic is a storehouse of vitamins and antioxidants, a highly winter-hardy, shade-tolerant and unpretentious plant. The season for consuming wild garlic leaves is only three weeks, but no other species from the onion family has such a literally stunning garlic aroma and unusual taste. In addition to these advantages, wild garlic is a very ornamental plant, because its leaves are similar to those of a lily of the valley, and its flowers are distinguished by their unique grace.

At the beginning of summer, winter and spring onions serve as suppliers of greens. I keep a small amount of seedlings and plant them in July. At the end of August, I prune the perennial onions again, and they expel succulent greenery throughout the fall. I note that with such intensive use, the perennial needs to be replanted and divided overgrown nests of bulbs once every three years in early September. With the onset of cold weather in the fall, onions pre-planted in the greenhouse come to the rescue, and in winter I plant shallots (family) in the apartment on the windowsill. Recently I have been practicing distillation in hydrogel: I soak the coarse fraction granules in a solution of Ecofus fertilizer (5 ml per liter of settled water), spread the finished hydrogel into small containers (5–8 cm) and bury the bulbs in the gel to two-thirds of their height. Excellent results are obtained by growing onions “Stardarst F1” in closed ground. This hybrid, even with a lack of light and a limited feeding area, grows long feathers of excellent taste.

Soil preparation

It is advisable to prepare the onion bed 2-3 weeks before planting:

1. First, humus is added to the site at the rate of 5.5 kg per m².
2. Then 14 g of potassium sulfate and 23 g of superphosphate are evenly scattered over each square meter.
3. You can add ash at the rate of 10 g per 1 m².

After spreading the fertilizer, you need to dig up the area. Novice vegetable growers are interested in how deep they should dig the soil? The onion does not need deep digging; it is enough to deepen the shovel 20 cm.

Important! It is advisable to slightly raise the winter ridges of onions to protect the crop from spring flooding.

Arzamas

The variety is mid-season. The taste is spicy. The bulbs are dense, round or elongated-rounded with white flesh and dark yellow outer scales with a brown tint. The period from mass germination of seedlings to lodging of leaves is 68-86 days. Productivity is 1.4-3.2 kg per 1 sq.m. The variety is cold-resistant, the bulbs store well, but are susceptible to downy mildew and attack by the onion fly.

Preparing bulbs for planting

Before planting, bulbs are calibrated while simultaneously rejecting specimens unsuitable for planting:

• dried out;
• with signs of illness;
• injured;
• rotten.

When calibrating, planting bulbs are divided into fractions:

This is interesting! The larger the planting fraction, the faster the feather grows in the spring. In wild oat, feathers grow longer than in other factions, and the number of leaves is smaller.

Processing onion sets before planting

Regardless of whether you purchased planting material or grew it yourself, you will have to sort and sort the onions before autumn planting. First of all, remove all diseased, rotten, dried out and onions with mechanical damage.

Then arrange the remaining onions according to size:

• up to 1 cm in diameter (wild oat);
• from 1 to 3 cm in diameter (sets);
• more than 3 cm in diameter (sample).

The first and second options are excellent for planting on a bulb, and the third gives early and abundant greenery.

If you are not sure about the health of the seed, it is advisable to disinfect it before planting.

To disinfect the bulbs, immerse them in a solution of copper sulfate (30 g per bucket of water) for half an hour, and then dry them in a warm room for 24 hours.

Landing technology

If the soil and planting bulbs are prepared, you can proceed directly to the planting procedure. It is performed according to the following algorithm:

1. planting grooves are made in the garden bed;
2. the distance between rows is taken to be about 20 cm;
3. for small onions, the depth of the furrows is 5 cm, for large-sized fractions - 8 cm;
4. place the bulbs in the grooves so that the planting step is 7 cm;
5. pour a seven-centimeter layer of prepared soil mixture on top of the bulbs;
6. The bed is leveled and compacted a little.

Important! The larger the planted bulbs, the greater the spacing in the row between them and the planting depth.

Sowing rules

Growing nigella is not difficult. It is important to follow the basic rules of planting and soil preparation. This determines how high-quality and abundant the harvest will be and how many seeds will germinate.

Soil preparation

First of all, choose a landing site. Garden plots on a small hill are best suited. This will help avoid moisture stagnation and reduce the risk of crop disease. It is important that the beds are well lit by the sun: the feathers of a plant in the shade will be yellow.

The beds on which onions previously grew are not used for planting the same crop for 2 years. Suitable predecessors are nightshade or legumes, cabbage, carrots.

Pre-prepare the soil. This is done in early October, when the soil is still quite soft:

1. The ground is dug up and the remains of weeds and cultivated plants are removed.
2. Fertilizers are applied: per 1 m2 take 0.5 buckets of humus or rotted manure and 1 tbsp. ash.
3. The soil is leveled with a rake and mixed with fertilizer.
4. Form beds 15–20 cm high, make grooves 2 cm deep. A small amount of coarse table salt is poured onto the bottom to prevent the onion fly from infecting the plants.

If the soil is sufficiently nutritious but heavy, river sand is used instead of humus. Pour 1/3 of a 10 liter bucket onto 1 m2.

Landing

It is not difficult to sow nigella. The main thing is to follow the rules:

1. Make grooves at a distance of 20 cm from each other. Their depth should reach 2–2.5 cm.
2. Seeds are poured into the grooves. Since the germination rate of nigella is low, thickened planting is used. Up to 100 seeds are consumed per 1 m2.
3. The seeds are sprinkled with a 2 cm layer of sand, then watered with warm, settled water.

The beds are mulched with humus, peat, hay or sawdust to protect against cold weather. This is especially true for regions where little snow falls in winter.

Important! Seeds no older than 2 years are suitable for planting.

Care after landing

There is just over a month left from the moment of planting to the cold weather, so caring for onions is as follows:

1. If the weather is dry and warm after planting, you can do 1-2 waterings before the cold weather.
2. A couple of weeks before frost, the beds are mulched with straw, dry leaves or peat. In the south, where winters are mild and not accompanied by severe frosts, it is not necessary to mulch onion beds.

Beginning gardeners in the fall often think about whether it is necessary to additionally cover the beds for the winter from freezing of the bulbs. There really is a need for this in areas where there are frosty, snowless winters. Usually the beds are covered with tops of vegetable plants.

At the beginning of winter, while there is little snow, it is recommended to collect it and throw it on the garden bed with a shovel. Snow is an excellent insulator for the soil; it will protect against any frost.

If you choose the right time for winter planting and do everything in accordance with the recommendations outlined in this article, the onion plantings will overwinter well and produce a good harvest.

Onions before winter - care in detail

When all planting work is completed, cover the beds with leaves, sawdust, branches or peat, this will help the plant withstand winter frosts. In a snowy winter, throw more snow on the beds; under the snow cover the onion will feel very good.

Then you can calmly wait for spring and, as soon as the ground thaws, the threat of frost has passed, quickly remove the layer of mulch. Loosen the soil and sprinkle the beds with ash. The ash will prevent the plantings from rotting and causing fungal infections. Don't forget to remove the weed.

One of the advantages of winter planting is considered to be a low probability of onion flies appearing in the garden bed, since the growing roots do not emit such a pungent odor as when rooted in the spring. But, if an onion fly appears, prepare a mixture of 1 cup of ash (preferably Jerusalem artichoke or corn), add 2 grams of ground red pepper and 1 tsp. l tobacco, scatter the mixture over 1 m².

When the first shoots appear in the spring, make a mineral cocktail - dilute 4 teaspoons of nitrogen, 40 g of phosphorus in 10 liters of water and water the beds (use this amount per 1.5 m²). Stop watering at the beginning of July and wait until the feathers turn slightly yellow and begin to lie down - now you can harvest. These are all the secrets of how to plant onions before winter and reap a record harvest!