It’s onion sowing time! Homegrown onions are nothing to cry about: Growing your own allows you to grow them organically and to choose your favorite varieties.
When choosing onion cultivars, consider the following:
Storage
Bulbing onions are classified as “sweet” or “storage.” Sweet onions are softer, sweet, and best used within a few weeks to a month after harvest. Storage onions have a thicker skin and stronger flavor, and they can be stored for two months or longer.
Latitude
Bulbing onions are day-length sensitive, meaning the bulbing process is triggered by day length. By picking cultivars for your day length, you can be sure the plants will grow big enough before forming a bulb, thus giving you a heavier harvest.
Here in North Carolina, we are in the intermediate day length.
Fun Fact
Did you know that onion bulbs are actually made up of leaves? Each of the green top leaves becomes a “scale leaf” that appears as one of the “rings” in the onion. This is why growing big, healthy, leafy plants prior to bulbing is so important.
We have high-quality seeds in stores from Botanical Interests, a family-owned company in Colorado. The decorative packets are printed inside with growing instructions.