The Girl and I were at the garden center the other day when I noticed a sack of onion bulbs for sale. Which reminded me of the Anderson Island Farm my online boyfriend Ryan and I visited last summer. One of the things I remembered about the gardens was that their onions were HUGE for it only being the end of May.
Which got me to thinking, what is the best way to grow onions? I mean if you going for taste, that is one thing, but if you simply want to harvest onions as earliest as possible, which ones would you want to grow?
Onion bulbs from the garden center, start onions from seed in January under grow lights, or buy them as onion starts in late winter from your local garden center or garden show? Do you know the answer? I sure don’t.
So this year I’m going to find out. The onion starts I purchased at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show were planted about a month ago. Yesterday I planted 60 onion bulbs and 20 or so onion seedlings in rows between my 3 Brussels sprout plants.
The garden bed was approved by Lucy the Puggle Dog of course. 😉
So what do YOU think? Which onions will I be harvesting first?
Bulbs, starts or seedlings?
~Mavis
Update: The garden bulbs came up first!!! 🙂
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Jennifer says
It will be fun to see what you harvest first….I have grown from bulbs and from seed….I prefer onions started from seed myself 🙂
Julie says
We are going to do seeds this year – our onions failed miserably last year from starts. Any advise for a newbie seed grower?
Mary Warbus says
Hi Mavis,
I actually grow onions both ways to have different harvest times. I have to admit like you I am a gardening nut.
Mary
Cecily says
If you want to harvest onions early the best way is to plant them in August when you plant your garlic and overwinter them. Our weather in the PNW is great for this, not too cold or dry. In November I cover them with a floating row cover. In February I take the cover off and let them do their thing. They are ready for harvest about the same time as the garlic in July.
Mavis Butterfield says
Thanks Cecily. I am going to try it this year. 🙂
Nicole says
Speaking of planting things, how did your fava beans do? I live just north of you (Poulsbo) and mine did not do well with the cold we have had this year. I am wondering if it was the cold or maybe the seeds (I ordered them on Amazon).
Mavis Butterfield says
Hi Nicole, the fava beans died a slow horrible death because of the freezing temps we had this winter. 🙁
Nicole says
I am glad that it wasn’t only mine. Maybe I will try again next year.
Dale says
Mavis, I love your blog and have learned a lot from your postings. I have only grown onions from seed so far. This Saturday will be a major planting day. I have just finished putting in 10 4×16 beds and irrigation. I bought the garden mix from Great Western Supply here in Olympia and everything is going as planned. I planted Peas in the 2′ border bed 3 weeks ago and they are all comming up beautifully. This weekend I will transplane the Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabage Artichokes and Brusselsprouts into their bed. Potatos will also go in. From seed I’ll be planting lettus carrots, radishs and the like. I bought a seed package from Backroomheirloomseeds.com $50. It was a 75 variety package with everything from Asparagus to Zuccini. So far I have had a 95% germination rate or better. Most of my timing and design ideas came from your site and I thank you for all the great information. I’ll send some pics if your intrested
Growing is living
Julie says
Where are you located? Any advice on “the chokes”? Ours failed miserably last year. Do you start your artichokes from seed?
Mavis Butterfield says
Western Washington and yes, we started our artichokes from seed last year. 🙂
Julie says
We are up on Camano and I’ve seen a few of our locals grow them beautifully. Are yours in contained beds or ?? I may have killed them by keeping them in pots (although LARGE pots). They looked really good for about two months but never grew above 6″ and zero food. We did do started plants. Sigh. I’m just not my grandma’s Gardner 🙂