First year starting onions from seed

[TheMad_Poet]

So I have seed here, walla walla burpee from the store and ailsa craig and a spanish yellow from last year. Last year I started in soil blocks under lights and they did so-so. I didn't start until near the end of Feb.

I really don't want to run the lights yet.

I was going to just start them outside in pots and maybe put some plastic over them to get them warmer during the day. Is that a bad plan? At this point I have little initiative to get anything at all started. I do plan to do more onions this year than I did last year.

JR you are spot on starting now. You can even soak the onion seeds overnight to give them a head start. Starting indoors would be closer to the optimal temp of 77-85 especially with frigid nights hanging around. If you have a deep round container (like 32 oz cottage cheese) use this to dense plant to get deep roots before separating at plant out. Not sure about growing without lights as day length is still creeping towards 12 hours.
- Lisa

Lisa, I like the idea of the cottage cheese containers. My containers would have been better had I filled to the top with soil. They are clear, and only 2.5" of soil. I can see the very long roots have hit bottom and turned. My biggest mistake so far.

[pepperhead212]

I started my onions and shallots yesterday. After reading here about getting deeper containers, I saved two good sized containers - not quite 3" deep, a little deeper than the usual mushroom containers I get half pounds of mushrooms in. I put the onions in the larger ones, and some shallot seeds in a mushroom container. I put some holes in all these, and set each in a large bowl of water, one at a time, to soak the soil, then put them in a tray, and set it on a tray, on my heatmat, and under a light, which I will put on the timer, once the seeds sprout.

[TheMad_Poet]

Update with pics. as a recap, I regret not using deeper pots. Next year I will try 1 gal nursery pots, which I have plenty saved from plants the wife buys. Pots around 7-8" diameter at the top and 6-8" deep. The ones in the pics are 4" top to bottom, and would have been better had I topped them off, compressed the soil, then added seeds, then another inch of soil. As you can see in the pics the roots reached the bottom and turned sideways. The soil settled to about 2.5". The sideways roots are definitely longer than the vertical ones. Thought about trying to move en-masse into the deeper pots, but afraid everything would fall apart in the process. Not sure if I should try doing that with the one that has the least seedlings??? May try that. The plan was to leave in dense planted starter pots, and break out at time of planting, just hope the are not too crowded. Way more than I need, so wondering if I need to thin??? Some of the seedlings had exposed roots, with the tiny bulb above the soil line. Not sure if the root growth is pushing them out of the soil, or the soil settling from watering. I sifted some fine soil and added a half inch or so on top of all. The 3 I have started are: Alisa Craig, Globo, Red of Florence. Will recheck but 1st week of April I think is plant out time for south east MI. Started in Dec, just after xmas, surprised they are not a bit bigger, but it seems they are doing well. These are the converted direct wire LED bulbs, much, much brighter!!!

IMG_9771.JPG

IMG_9774.JPG

IMG_9775.JPG

[Barb_FL]

I am far from an expert, 2nd year growing onions - short day season (Granex - (valdalia). I sow in a 4.5" square pot about 10-15 in each pot and from my experience, onions are very forgiving. When I plant out, I remove them from the pot, lay them sideways and separate them with fert-water Then stick them in the hole I made with my finger.

This year I also bought onions from Dixondale, and noticed that they clip the tops.

I bought Texas Legend from Dixondale, and they were either way fatter than mine grown from seeds or way skinnier where I would not have planted out mine grown from seed. The really thin ones didn't make it. The other set I bought from Dixondale was the Sampler Package and they were more uniform in size but really no better than the ones I grew myself.

[TheMad_Poet]

Thanx for the info Barb. Am wondering about plant out time for seedlings now. I had thought early April, which is what many say for putting sets in. But Bower seemed to say in an earlier post that seedlings were much less cold hardy than sets. If I interpret what he said properly. We have had pretty heavy frost in late May on more than one occasion. Will have to look into that aspect, which means seedlings may need to satay in the container longer. Thinking I will try to move some into the larger containers, as an experiment of sorts, then see if they do better than those not moved. Hope somebody chimes in here, I am so inexperienced in onions.

[bower]

I just did a quick google for Michigan and they say plant onions out in April to May, also depending on your location, two weeks after the last frost date. You can always cover them with row cover or burlap if there is a late frost.
Also, I had onion seedlings that survived being snowed on in June one year. So it depends how cold of a frost you're expecting, and whether they had time to settle in to their new digs. Once they're established they are hardy enough.

[TheMad_Poet]

I just did a quick google for Michigan and they say plant onions out in April to May, also depending on your location, two weeks after the last frost date. You can always cover them with row cover or burlap if there is a late frost.
Also, I had onion seedlings that survived being snowed on in June one year. So it depends how cold of a frost you're expecting, and whether they had time to settle in to their new digs. Once they're established they are hardy enough.

I've watched a lot of videos last couple days. Dixondale says for my area plant sets around 8 of april, as do a lot of sites. And a lot say seedlings same time. I thought maybe seedlings were less hardy. Sets take a while to wake up, so even if seedlings are put out later they are ahead of the game. Plan on mulching with triple ground woodchips, used that last yr on everything, including onion sets, and it worked well. Heavy straw on my garlic right now, so maybe I'll move some of that to the onions. Probably worrying too much about it. The back of the seed packs say 3-4 weeks before last frost. So mid APR sounds right. Also saw a lot of vids where dense planting was done in small pots, not that deep and the pulled a part fine at planting. So I think all is good on that front. Will use deeper pots next year, I think there is some benefit to that.