It’s late January in North Texas, and that means it’s time to plant your onions. Check out our video below or scroll down to read.
Onions are Easy
It’s late January in North Texas, and that means it’s time to plant your onions. Here in Collin County, these will go in the ground late January to early February. We sell them in bunches, which is a bundle of about 50 baby onions. These are called slips, starts, or transplants.
Onions are the easiest vegetable you could possibly ever plant. All you have to do is poke your finger in the ground up to the middle knuckle and drop the onion start in the hole. That’s all there is to it. The soil should come up to the area where the color of the onion gives way to the green of the stem.
If you’re doing a square foot garden, you’ll typically plant 4 onions to a square. If you want them to get full-size, you’ll leave them in the ground for 3-4 months. However, you can harvest early if you like “green” onions, which taste great in salads and many recipes. Onions are simple to know when to harvest because they just fall over. (Click here for a video about harvesting.)
Onions have have small, shallow roots and need watering at least weekly if it’s not raining. Raised beds, flower pots, planters, or buckets – anything that lets the water drain is great for planting onions. They don’t want to sit in water, but because they don’t have long, deep root systems, they do need to be watered relatively regularly, especially if it is hot and dry.
After you get them planted, you’ll want to feed them with bone meal, which is high in phosphorus and is great for
roots and bulb crops like onions.
At Shades of Green, we sell 3 varieties that have been proven time and time again to do really well in our soil and climate.
Sweet Red Onion
– Globe-shaped onion with a sweet, mild flavor that’s just the right accent for a burger or your favorite salad
– Stores for 1 month
– Plant 6 inches apart
– Grows 2 feet tall
– 100 days to harvest
White Granex / Miss Society
– A medium large, white. semi-globe hybrid onion
– Has a fantastic flavor when harvested green
– Has a mild, mellow onion flavor
– Plant 8 inches apart
– Grows 24 to 30 inches tall
– 120 to 160 days to harvest
Texas Super Sweet 1015-Y
– Developed by Texas A&M
– A giant yellow onion with a super sweet taste
– Can grow as large as a softball and can weigh up to 1 pound each
– Stores up to 2 to 3 months
– 115 days to harvest
Additional Resources:
Tim Wardell is a Texas Certified Nursery Professional, Certified Square Foot Garden Instructor, and serves as the Marketing Coordinator for Shades of Green Nursery + Landscape in Frisco, Texas.
