It's late January in North Texas, and that means it's time
to plant your onions. so let's get to it.
Hi, I'm Tim with Shades of Green Nursery and Landscape in
Frisco, Texas, and it's the time of the year that you wanna
start planting your onions. Here in Collin County, these will go
in the ground late January early February, and we sell them
in bunches. That's fifty onions and a bunch. Sometimes
these will be called slips. Sometimes these will be called
starts. Sometimes they're referred to as transplants, but they're little
bitty baby onions. In this case, red. Onions, when they're in
a start like this, they're the easiest vegetable you could possibly
ever plant. All you gotta' do - come over here, mister
cameraman - put your finger in the ground up to that knuckle,
put your onion in. That's all there is to it. Now on these,
you'll see that there's an area where the color, whether
it's a white, yellow onion, yellow onion or red onion. It's
gonna taper off into the green of the stem. You want your soil
to come right up to about that level. That's why the first
knuckle is always the key. You just poke your finger in the
ground. Follow it with the onion, and it's just that
simple. Now I am a big fan of square foot gardening. Because it
makes it really easy to know how many to plant. These are
red onions. They're gonna get somewhere between the size of a...
little bit bigger than a golf bal, a little bit smaller than
a baseball. I'm gonna let these go to maturity. so I'm gonna'
give them space to get big. That's about six inches apart.
If you're doing a square that will be four onions in a square.
When I get toward the end here, since I got fifty of them here,
I'm gonna plant 'em a lot closer. Now, if you want to let them
get full size, you're gonna leave them in the ground.
probably till the end of May early June. Onions are real
simple to know when to harvest because they're just gonna fall over.
...and I'll post a link to another video below that'll give you
some information of when and how to harvest and dry and
store your onions. But for right now, all I wanna do is
get them on the ground. ...and poke my finger in the ground, drop an
onion. So, eventually I'll plant all these squares out. The
end of this bed is garlic. I've got some flowers in the middle,
so I know where one crop ends and the next one begins. This end of
the bed is gonna be onions. So all I'm gonna do is go around,
poke my finger into the ground, drop the onion in, push up the
soil. We've had a lot of rain so this soil is good and wet and
that's something you need to bear in mind with onions. They
have small, shallow roots and you want to make sure that
they're watered often. A raised bed, a flower pot, a
planter, something that lets the water drain is great for
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. Also, after I get them all in the
ground, I'm gonna feed them with bone meal. Bone meal is high in
phosphorus, which is great for roots and bulbs, and this is a
root or a bulb crop. So, get everything in the ground and
then add a little phosphorus to the soil. Water them in. If it's
dry. If it's been really wet, like it has been here, this soil
is already saturated, so I'm not gonna worry about adding
any water to this for a couple of days. And that's all there is
to it. So let's recap. Onions are absolutely one of the easiest
vegetables you can grow. you can even grow them in flower pots.
In fact, that's a great idea because they have a really
pretty flower on them. You do wanna water them a little
bit because they have short, shallow roots, as we mentioned.
So if it's hot and dry, we haven't had rain in a while you
do wanna check em and get some water on them, but don't soak
them. If they're sitting in wet, super-saturated soil for a long
period of time they will rot. When it comes to fertilizer
bone meal is what you want to use because it's high in phosphorus
and that's exactly what a bulb plant like an onion wants. Now,
when it comes to what variety well, that's up to you,
personal taste and how you're gonna use them in your cooking.
We here at Shades of Green sell three varieties that have been
proven time and time again to do really great in our soil and
our climate and they are: the sweet red onion. This is a
globe-shaped onion with a sweet, mild flavor that's just the
right accent for a burger or your favorite salad They'll
store for 1 month. You want to plant these six inches apart.
They will grow two feet tall and expect about 100 days until
harvest, if you want them full size. Next is the White
Granex, sometimes called Miss Society. This is a medium large.
white. semi-globe hybrid onion Expect it to be a little bit
larger than a baseball. It has a fantastic flavor when harvested
green. So, if you're looking for an onion for your salad,
this is it. It has a mild, mellow onion flavor. You're gonna plant
these eight inches apart. Expect them to grow 24 to 30
inches tall, and take 120 to 160 days until harvest. Next is the
big yellow. This is proof that everything is bigger in Texas.
The Texas is Super Sweet 1015-Y. This was developed by the
folks at Texas A&M. It's a giant yellow onion with a super sweet
taste. It can grow as large as a softball and can weigh up to
one pound each. They store really well, up to 2 to 3
months, and you can expect 115 days until harvest. So there you
have it. That's what you need to know to grow onions. It's
super simple, really easy, and who doesn't like onions? So, give
it a try. I'm Tim with Shades of Green Nursery and Landscape
in Frisco, Texas. Thanks for watching the Shades of Green Show
Shades of Green Nursery and Landscape Frisco, Texas