Many people do not plant heirloom onions. The reason is that small bulbs grow. But if you know the agricultural technology of family onions, you can grow bulbs of 150g or more.
Onions are a widespread vegetable crop of the onion family. Onions can be small-germ (1-2), medium-germ (2-3) and multi-germ (4-5 or more). In common parlance, multiple bows are called family bows. Seven I - a lot.
Largest heirloom onion bulb
Shallots should also be included here. This is a type of multi-bud onion, but with a smaller bulb and tender leaves. I immediately notice that it is not feathers, but leaves. Birds have feathers, but plants only have leaves.
Due to its exquisite taste, shallots are considered a gourmet onion. These bows are often confused and called “all hands on deck.” Therefore, for convenience, we will call all these bows family.
Dates for planting heirloom onions
Onions are a cold-resistant plant. Its root system grows intensively at a lower temperature than the leaves. This biological feature makes it possible to plant at an earlier date.
The root system of onions develops at temperatures from + 2° to + 25°C and tolerates frosts down to minus 4-6°C. The onion leaf grows well at temperatures of +15-25°C, withstands frosts down to minus 7°C and tolerates heat of +35°C.
If you delay planting and the air and soil temperatures are high, leaves will immediately begin to grow. The root system will no longer be as powerful and this will affect the results.
If there is enough moisture in the soil during the period of leaf growth, the plant is in no hurry to form a storage organ. It continues to increase the number of leaves and their size, thereby creating the basis for the formation of a larger and larger bulb. The more powerful leaves the plant has, the larger the bulb will be (taking into account varietal characteristics).
If there is a lack of moisture during the growing season, plant growth stops, and the bulbs begin to form at the stage in which they were caught in the drought.
For normal onion growth, a water regime with low air humidity (60-70%) and high soil moisture is required. This crop places especially high demands on water during the first period of growth, when the process of swelling and germination of the planting material takes place, the leaf apparatus increases in volume, and the bulb begins to form. During the growth period, additional watering is necessary.
Heirloom onions often reproduce vegetatively. Since several bulbs grow in the nest, some are left for planting. The rest go to food. And so every year.
Is it possible to plant heirloom onions before winter?
Family onion is a fully grown and sexually mature plant, despite the size of the bulb. Onions planted before winter shoot, even small ones. Onions can partially shoot when planted very early in a cold, protracted spring. But this happens extremely rarely.
The Siberian Research Institute of Plant Growing and Selection (SibNIIRS) has developed varieties that can be planted before winter. Among the varieties recommended for winter planting are: Siberian Yellow, SIR-7, Ryzhik, Sophocles, Seryozhka, Krepysh, Albik, Garant and a number of new Siberian hybrids. But these are not multi-bud onions, but shallots.
Properties of shallots - harm and benefit
Useful properties of shallots
The composition of shallots is not much different from the composition of onions. Shallot leaves and bulbs contain essential oil, B vitamins, carotenoids, phytoncides, but there are more minerals, ascorbic acid and sugars in shallots than in onions. The composition of shallots includes salts of phosphorus, iron, potassium, calcium, as well as cobalt, nickel, chromium, molybdenum, silicon, vanadium, titanium and germanium.
In folk medicine, shallots have long been used to treat stomach and eye diseases.
Leaves and young shallot bulbs are used in cooking, both fresh and pickled. The taste, more subtle than that of onions, has made shallots a valuable ingredient in French cuisine - they are added to sauces and soups to add flavor to dishes, and also added to poultry and game delicacies.
Shallots - contraindications
People with diseases of the genitourinary system and gastrointestinal tract should be careful when consuming shallots, as they increase acidity, can cause irritation of the intestinal mucosa and make urination difficult.
Shallots are contraindicated for kidney and liver diseases, bronchospasms, constipation, and pancreatic diseases, as they can cause their exacerbation.
Agricultural technology of family onions, features
To understand agricultural technology, you need to understand the structure of the bulb.
At the bottom of family onions there is a heel - the place where the daughter bulbs are attached to the bottom of the mother bulb.
If you cut the heel, you will see the location of the roots, in the form of a horseshoe. The cross section shows the rudiments.
Usually, for planting, I use a bulb weighing about 100g . If you plant a whole bulb, all the buds will germinate and > 8 small bulbs will grow. The quantity depends on the variety. The larger the planting bulb, the more new bulbs are formed, but small ones.
Features of cultivation depending on the region
When determining specific dates for planting shallots, they are guided by the weather conditions of the growing region.
The time is chosen so that the onion has time to take root, but does not begin to grow . This means that sowing is carried out 2-3 weeks before the arrival of frost.
Need to know. Often, shallot plantings freeze out not because of severe frosts, but because the bulbs have not had time to take root.
In Siberia and the Urals, the optimal time for autumn sowing of family onions is the period from late September to early October. In the Moscow region and Leningrad region - until mid-October. In the Krasnodar Territory they sow until the beginning of November.
How to grow large family onions?
To grow a large family onion, it must be prepared for planting. First of all, it must be cleaned from dry scales to juicy ones. Various pathogens are often hidden under dry scales. Then the bulbs are pickled in a solution of copper sulfate -1 tbsp. spoon for 10 liters of water. Pickling time 20 min. The pickled onions are rinsed with clean water.
During storage, the onion dries out slightly and loses nutrients. To restore the supply of moisture and nutrients, onions need to be soaked in nutrient solutions of any complex fertilizers.
To do this, you need to trim the heel to pure white scales. There is no need to be afraid that you will cut off too much. The rudiments themselves are deep. Even if you damage one or two, there are many of them in the bulb. If two of the six rudiments are damaged, the remaining four will produce a decent harvest. Damaged buds do not grow. But it’s better not to injure too much, just cut off the heel to the bottom. Removing dry scales and trimming the heel of the bottom facilitates the access of moisture, primarily to the roots, therefore, first of all, a powerful root system develops, ensuring strong plant growth.
I try to do without chemicals and use Gumistar or Biohumus for soaking onions - 1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water. Soaking time 8-10 hours.
Then I place the onion in a bucket, close it with a lid and place it in any unheated room until the roots grow (3 - 5mm).
How to cut heirloom onions before planting?
Now you need to cut it in half. Onions are cut not to increase the number of planting units, but to obtain larger bulbs in the harvest. Each half will contain fewer buds than were in the whole bulb. Each half will produce 3-4 marketable bulbs. The feeding area will remain the same and fewer bulbs will receive more nutrition.
Cut the onion into halves, trying to leave approximately the same number of roots on them.
In other words, after cutting off the heel, turn the onion 90° and cut along the roots. I do not process the cuts with anything. They dry out a little on their own.
Cut the whole onion
We cut the family onion. The onions are ready to plant.
Preparing the soil for planting
This vegetable is best planted in sunny places, without excess moisture. You need to dig up the ground a month before planting. Add a bucket of humus and 60 grams per square meter of soil. superphosphate. Wood ash can be used as a source of potassium and phosphorus. Fertilizers are applied to the entire area so that the roots can feed themselves with minerals during the growth process.
Preparing the soil for planting
In autumn, it is necessary to maintain sufficient soil moisture, if necessary, moisten before and after sowing, until the onset of frost. A sufficient amount of water will allow the roots to strengthen, and this will help the plant to calmly overwinter.
Planting heirloom onions
The first time I come to the dacha is at the very end of April or at the beginning of May. I’m trying to plant onions as quickly as possible, at least before May 5th.
According to the popular calendar, this is Luke's day - Luke's day. So I plant onions up to Luka. Sometimes April is warm and (if possible) I plant earlier. How the soil ripens.
If you measure the soil temperature, then the most suitable is +5°C. You can do without a thermometer, I just check when the soil stops being smudged and you can plant.
I have permanent beds 0.9 m wide. Passages 0.5m.
In the spring, I rake the straw into the passages and lightly loosen the top layer of the bed with a Strizh cultivator.
Then I make furrows 3-5cm deep with a furrow at a distance of 20cm from each other -15cm-20cm-20cm-20cm-15cm. I water the grooves with water from a watering can without a strainer.
I sprinkle the moistened grooves with a mixture of ash and Zemlina (the same diazinon) against onion flies, 1 liter of ash + 1 packet of Zemlina is enough for 4 grooves 10 m long.
I place the onion halves in the grooves at a distance of 23 cm in a checkerboard pattern. It turns out to fit into equilateral triangles with a side of 23 cm.
I rakes the planted onions on both sides, like potatoes.
It is warm and humid under these dunes. Luke likes it.
The longer the day and the higher the temperature during growth, the more scales are closed, the better the onion will be stored in the future, the deeper and longer its dormant period.
The best predecessors
When planting onions in winter, do not forget about the rules of crop rotation - crop rotation.
Reference . The main rule of crop rotation is that one crop should not be grown in the same bed for more than two years in a row.
Planting onions in the same place will lead to the dominance of onion flies, shredding of the bulbs and loss of yield . The crop is returned to its original place no earlier than after 4-5 years. The longer the break, the better.
Then why plant onions in the fall? For pre-winter sowing, choose beds on which pumpkin crops (cucumbers, pumpkin, zucchini), tomatoes, legumes, and grain crops were previously grown . It’s a good idea to sow after beets, mustard, and rapeseed.
Do not plant onions after any other varieties, garlic, parsley, parsnips . Other undesirable precursors are potatoes, alfalfa, and red clover. Otherwise, there is a risk of onion being damaged by nematodes.
Caring for family onions
Until the leaf grows to 10cm, I don’t do anything. I don't even water it. Let the roots go deep in search of moisture. I don't do any fertilizing. I don't spray anything. I didn’t notice any illnesses.
Onions grow very quickly and it’s time to mulch the beds. To mulch an onion bed, you need to chop up a decent amount of organic matter.
Mulched beds retain moisture better and onions grow well. I mulch to the height of the hilled rows (approximately 5cm - 10cm) with mowed weeds, immediately after chopping them, without drying them out. When dry, the mulch covers the bed with a dense, porous layer.
I water the onions once a week. The garden bed takes 200 liters of water. From the beginning of July I stop watering.
At the end of June, the bulbs begin to separate and the number of bulbs in the nest can be counted. The optimal quantity is 3-5 pcs.
If the quantity exceeds 5 pieces, then you can normalize - remove excess bulbs.
The remaining bulbs will grow larger.
When to rake the family onions? - at the beginning of July. You can simply push the soil away in a circular manner with your finger. The onion will be all in sight. In the sun the bulb will ripen faster.
Care after landing
Caring for family onions is simple. The main thing is to follow the necessary recommendations in time:
- In spring, winter mulch is removed.
- Watering is carried out as the soil dries, per square meter. m – 2 buckets of water.
- After germination, new mulch of straw or sawdust is laid.
- Loosening is neat, to a shallow depth.
- If the onion is grown for the head, the feather is not cut off.
- To obtain large bulbs, thinning is necessary. It is carried out several times per season, ultimately leaving 3-5 bulbs.
- Watering is stopped 14 days before harvest.
- When the feathers turn yellow and lodge, harvesting is carried out.
- The harvested crops are dried, the feather is cut 3 cm from the bulb.
- Store in a dry, ventilated area.
Harvesting family onions
End of July.
The onion is ready for harvest. “It should be noted that you should not delay harvesting onions after lodging of the leaves, as this leads to increased losses during winter storage.
This is explained by the fact that the bulbs remaining in the ground absorb moisture from the soil, which activates growth processes and shortens the dormant period.”
I pull out the onion when the dew dries. He lies in the beds all day. In the evening I clean out the attic. There the harvested onions are ripened and dried. After drying, I wash the leaves by hand. I don't use scissors.
Even if it is damp and cold during harvesting, the family onions ripen well and dry under the roof. It is not in danger of secondary germination. He has a long period of rest, which was confirmed by the past, far from hot summer.
After the onions, I sow peas and oat mixture throughout the entire plot. Green manure from this mixture goes away before winter. In the spring I plant potatoes, right on the straw.
Advice from experienced summer residents
Experienced gardeners advise growing shallots for green feathers . Shallot feathers do not become rough over time and retain their taste and nutritional properties. Therefore, it is often grown for commercial green purposes.
Important! Shallots are the most cost-effective onion for producing greens.
Shallot leaves are cut at a height of 20-25 cm, a month after planting . This early ripening is another advantage of shallots over onions.
Growing shallots for turnips also deserves attention . In addition to the earlier harvest, shallots are better stored in winter. Its heads are denser, and their small size is convenient to use.
It is recommended to sow family onions in two separate beds : for planting material and for food. Large bulbs are planted on the seed - they create a nest of small ones, convenient for planting next year. And small onions are sown in the second bed, from which large heads grow.
Shallots are planted on soil fertilized with humus and mineral fertilizers.
Advice. If you pluck a couple of heads from the nest during growth, the remaining bulbs will grow heavier.
