Features And Methods Of Growing Onions Near St. Petersburg

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Onion secrets

"The worm-worm does not gnaw my onion, but gnaw a bunch of nettles," saying this, the gardeners planted bunches of nettles in the corners of the onion plot. Recalling this saying-prayer, I also remembered my old youth, the beginning of an agronomic career.

Then I, a nineteen-year-old agronomist (it was 55 years ago), women from a brigade of gardeners locked one in a shed, and four people themselves went to four corners of the field and planted something there.

After, a year later, they confessed to me that they did the same when planting cabbage, and when planting tomatoes, and when sowing cucumbers. I don't remember those sayings anymore, I had to write them down then, but my memory tenaciously holds the picture: the team is standing in a crowd, and four women are walking along the edge of the field.

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Only after many years did I realize that nettle is not only a talisman, but an indicator of soil temperature, an indicator that vegetables can be planted if the nettle has already grown.

Now I have a site near Vyborg, the terrain there is low. Once I miscalculated with the sowing of cabbage seeds for seedlings, it quickly stretched out, it would be necessary to plant, otherwise the seedlings will outgrow. And the bed is already ready. I went to look for nettles to pick a bunch, but it just peeks out of the ground a little. For me, this is a clear signal: the ground is still cold - if you plant cabbage seedlings in such a ground, then there will be so many diseases that you will not be saved.

Onions are a low-yielding, labor-intensive culture. This is a general conclusion, without reservations about the cultivation area and onion varieties. Near Rostov-on-Don, where I used to live, onions (dry, beautiful - rustles, glitters) are grown in the fields for a turnip from seeds in one summer. That's one price, one yield. And in our zone, bulbs can also be grown from seeds in one summer, but they will be smaller, often painful. This is a different yield, a different price.

I believe that if one of the gardeners in our zone fails to harvest onions, then we must remember that there are many other types of it. For example, perennial onions: slime, chives, Altai, fragrant, oblique, wild garlic. From early spring to autumn frosts, they feed the whole family. It does not turn out good greens from the set, since the set may turn out to be sick, sow the seeds on the batun or leek. These two types of onions give the most powerful greens in any summer, however, we can grow leeks only through seedlings.

Onions are a biennial plant. In the first year, we get a bulb from the seeds. Next year we will plant this onion and get the seeds.

The best zodiac signs for getting a bulb are Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn. Good predecessors for it are cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, legumes, i.e. those plants under which we abundantly introduce organic matter. It is advisable to return the bow to its original place after 4-5 years, i.e. strictly observe the crop rotation.

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On acidic soils, bulbs do not set, only greens are obtained, so soils with acidity below pH 5 are not suitable. They need to be limed, but it is still better to do this not for planting onions, but to calcify the beds for culture - the predecessor, in extreme cases, the day before - in the fall. In my practice, there was once such a case: it was required to reduce the acidity of the soil on the site - I determined this by the leaves of the beet, which reacts sharply to this indicator. In the laboratory before us, gardeners, they were not allowed. I didn't buy lime in the fall, I brought it in in the spring, I determined the rate, as they say, by eye. As a result, she overdid it - she ruined the entire collection of family bows and the rest of the bow. Alas, the bulbs did not set.

Another time a gardener came to me and asked me to see her onion garden. In all neighbors, the onion develops well, turns green brightly, and her feathers have not even grown. It turns out that in the spring she brought ash to the garden bed, also by eye, from the heart. The onion sprouted due to the nutrition in the bulb and stopped growing. The hostess thought that her soil was still sour, and she also covered the ridge with ash. Yes, so generously that when I came, I saw ash on the surface of the soil.

The acidity of the soil for onions is needed in the range of pH 6.5-7.0, and even at a pH of 7.9 it grows well. In our zone, the bulb may not set even when planting southern varieties that grow with a short daylight hours, from which we can get only greens. For example, the old variety Kaba - in the south a huge onion grows from a seed, but in our country - only greens.

Soil requirements

Onions love light, fertile soil, require organic matter in the form of humus, compost. Fresh manure can only be applied under the previous crop. If it has lain with you for a year or two, but it is still not quite humus, then you can bring it in without fear.

I usually cook a ridge in the fall, bury all plant waste on a full bayonet with a shovel in the grooves - I cut off all faded flowers, Jerusalem artichoke, goldenrod, gelenium, asparagus leaves, beet leaves, carrots, cabbage, from the greenhouse I bring cucumber lashes, tomato tops, etc. …

If the soil needs to be deoxidized, then sprinkle a little dolomite flour or ash, add superphosphate. I do not put potash or full mineral fertilizers in the fall.

In early spring, as soon as you can walk along the path, I go to the garden bed, bring in azophoska, potassium magnesium (the norms are indicated on the packages), scatter humus or compost - 5 kg per square meter, and sometimes up to 7 kg - it depends on the predecessor, how much for it manure was brought in, whether all of it was used. For example, late cabbage requires a lot of nutrition, and early cabbage requires less. I dig the soil shallowly with a pitchfork - half the horns, then I use a rake to harrow, trying to quickly close the moisture and fertilizers. Here the ridge is ready, the earth is ripening. I also prepare the soil for sowing nigella for sevok, for sowing onions with seeds for greens (now there are many such varieties).

Temperature regime

Seeds germinate at a temperature of + 2 … + 3 ° С, but still the optimum temperature for germination is + 18 … + 22 ° С. The seedlings endure cold snaps, but at -3 … -5 ° С the onion dies. The optimum temperature for leaf growth is + 18 … + 20 ° C, and for the formation and ripening of bulbs + 20 … + 30 ° C. The roots need a lower temperature. They begin to grow already at + 2 … + 3 ° С, develop well at + 5 … + 10 ° С, if the temperature is higher than this mode, the leaves grow faster, and the temperature above + 20 ° С inhibits root growth. This is the basis of the experience of the Vologda gardener Shulgin.

This method involves planting seedlings at an early date, when the ground is still cold - in grooves 8-10 cm deep, and then the bulbs need to be buried, i.e. spud like a potato. With this method, the roots grow faster in the bulbs, and only then the leaves. The advantages of this method are that the plants are not damaged by the onion fly, the roots grow powerful, and the onions do not require watering in the future. When loosening, the earth crumbles from the bumps.

The first among our gardeners to try Shulgin's method was Lydia Petrovna Kvartalnova. She told about him at a seminar in our gardening club. We were surprised by the size of the bulbs grown. Kvartalnova also studied this method among the gardeners of the Shuvalovo district. It turns out that they planted this way all their lives, but their varieties probably had local, family bows.

I also grow onions without waiting for the heat. Family bows do not shoot if planted early, and other varieties may go into the arrow, although shooting can occur due to improper storage.

Onion storage

A sevok less than 1 cm in diameter is called an oat. It dries up in apartment conditions. You can use it for planting in the fall, but I leave it for the winter in a garden house without wrapping it up, or store it in the refrigerator at a temperature of + 3 … + 5 ° C, or even better at 0 … -2 ° C. Sevok with a diameter of up to 2 cm should be stored in a warm way - immediately after digging, give the temperature + 18 … + 20 ° С, if the temperature is + 3 … + 5 ° С, then it will be shot. Often, gardeners make a mistake after harvesting the seed. They dry it in the attic or in the shed - cut it off, put it in nets and forget it. They remember him when it's time to go to winter apartments. And the set has already been stored in cold conditions - at a temperature of + 10 … + 11 ° С, then it may well be shot.

Cold storage at -1 … -3 ° С. If you purchased a set in winter or spring, then continue to store it only in a warm way. Then, before planting, it is necessary to warm the seedlings for eight hours at a temperature of + 40 ° C. Such a regime must be strictly maintained, this removes the effect of improper storage, warming up helps to awaken dormant kidneys, reduces shooting, and reduces the disease of fungal diseases. You can act differently: warm up the sets a week before planting at a temperature of + 28 … + 32 ° С. I can do this in the bathhouse or on the stove in the house.

But this winter I made a mistake. It was hot in the apartment since autumn, I put spring garlic and sets in boxes on the floor in the coldest corner of the apartment, we have one. And then there were severe frosts for two weeks. Has caught on - it is necessary to check the temperature in that corner. It turned out to be + 13 ° С. This means that I have already violated the storage regime, now the sets must be warmed up in the spring, otherwise the onions will go into arrows. I have a Danilovsky onion - 301. I have already noticed that it shoots more often when the storage regime is violated than the Stuttgarten rizen variety.

Growing seedlings

First you need to check the seeds for germination. To do this, you need to hold a small amount of seeds in a wet cloth at room temperature, and when they start to bite, calculate the percentage of germination. Of course, it is not worth sowing low-germinating seeds.

Before sowing, I do not wash onion seeds and do not keep them in any solutions, since I sow them in cold, damp soil. The bed is already ready, the ground is wet. I do not make a narrow groove, but put a 3-4 cm wide rail on the soil, press with my foot - a wide groove is obtained. I sprinkle the seeds thickly so that the seedlings are not very large, and the germination of seeds will be one hundred percent. I cover the seeds with earth, press it down with my hand.

I leave 20 cm between the rows so that it is convenient to loosen. If the soil in your garden is dry before sowing, then the furrow must be thoroughly watered, and only then can you sow. I cover the entire bed with a transparent film, shoots appear in about ten days. Then I immediately remove the film, loosen the aisles and close the sowing with lutrasil. But sometimes the spring is warm, without frost, then lutrasil is not needed.

Crop care

The main thing here is weeding! In May and June, water the plants if necessary. In July I usually don't water anymore. Only if there is a severe drought, then watering is needed. The less watering, the less the threat of diseases. Sowed early, the roots gained strength, while the earth is damp, and then abundant dew begins, especially among those gardeners who have a plot in the lowlands. I always say: you can teach gardeners everything, but you cannot teach them to water and feed plants.

The garden bed was well filled, the little onions are enough, so I don't feed them. You can remove the sevok when the leaves begin to dry out. I do not specify the exact dates of cleaning, since it happens differently every year. It all depends on the variety, on the timing of sowing, on how many times it was watered, whether the ridge is in the sun all day or was part of the day in the shade … There are many factors.

Growing onions from sets

There are many guidelines for handling sevka before planting. I had such a case: I bought a set, and on closer inspection it turned out to be in mold. I took off all the husks from it, etched it in a 1% solution of potassium permanganate. But during the growing season, he was still struck by powdery mildew and infected a neighboring bed of another onion. So since then, I have only warmed up the planting material as described above. And I don't use any stimulants. It is not for nothing that our ancestors dried onions, treated them with smoke in a bath or in a barn, and then stored them on stoves or near stoves, tied in "braids".

Onion planting time depends on the weather and soil temperature. For example, here I am looking at my notes: in 2001 I planted a bow on May 12, in 2002 - on May 2, in 2003 - on May 10. Planting depth on clay soil is "shoulder-length", and on light soil it is worth deepening 1.5-2 cm above the shoulder. I plant it in grooves 8-10 cm deep, as I described above, and cover it with earth the way we spud potatoes.

The spacing between rows and between bulbs depends on the variety. Single-root varieties, i.e. in which one (rarely two) bulbs grow in the nest - varieties Stuttgarten rizen, Ufimsky, Strigunovsky, Timiryazevsky, Myachkovsky, Mstersky, Danilovsky-301 - they have 20-25 cm between rows, and 8-10 cm between bulbs. Varieties, which give 3-5 bulbs in the nest - Rostov onion, Pogarsky local, Bessonovsky local, Spassky local - their distance must be at least 20x20 cm. In a good summer, each bulb grows to 70-90 grams. It must be remembered that the bulbs need food and ventilation. Family bows are planted according to the 30x30 cm pattern.

If for some reason you could not add humus or compost for digging, then in this case you need to dig a groove 6-7-10 cm deep, pour humus along its entire length, mix it with the soil and spread the bulbs.

I can give advice, proven in practice. If for some reason you are late with planting, then in order to make up for the time, the seedlings must be soaked in cool water, laid out on a wet burlap and covered with the same wet burlap and put the planting material for 2-3 days in a cold place (veranda, barn) … During this time, the roots of the seed will sprout. After that, you can lay out the set in the grooves. But if the soil on the ridge is already dry, then be sure to spill the grooves with water.

Onion care

It is imperative to loosen the plantings and weed them. You should not rush to watering - you need to navigate by the weather. If it is dry, watering is necessary. I plant the sevok early, the soil in the garden is wet, so I don't need watering. Sometimes gardeners say: "And I have sand, what should I do?"

It is necessary to add more organic matter every year, then the water will not quickly go away. And if you have sand, and instead of organic matter you bring in the now fashionable nutrient solutions only from bottles, then the moisture on your soil will not linger. It is necessary to gradually form humus on the sand.

In any case, if you really have to water the onion beds, then only until July, and in a severe drought - until mid-July. Watering frequency depends on the root system. If the onion is planted in warm ground (such that you can walk barefoot) and repaired to a depth of "shoulder-length", then the roots will grow weakly, the feathers will grow quickly, here you cannot do without watering. And it is necessary not only to spray on the planting from a watering can, but to shed the earth thoroughly. Watering is necessary every 8-10 days, 10-12 liters for each square meter of the garden. I can no longer afford such watering, so I grow onions differently, as I said. And after each watering, the soil needs to be loosened, but I loosen it after every rain.

Top dressing can not be done if the bed is well filled with organic matter and mineral fertilizers. Here you need to look at the condition of the bow. With a lack of nitrogen, onion feathers grow poorly, they are pale green with a tinge of redness. In this case, you can use slurry or fermented weeds, or ammonium nitrate. If the bed was not filled with organic matter, then you can feed it twice with slurry, but you need to have time to do it all in May-June.

For example, once I was going to plant onions on a ridge of strawberries, which had been growing there for six years, i.e. the soil was depleted. In the fall, I prepared this ridge for onions in the same way as always. And in June I decided to feed the plantings with slurry, and thoroughly. I thought that the food that I put in the ridge would not be enough for him. And she overdid it. All the gardeners in the neighborhood had already begun to pack onions, they were preparing for harvesting, but I had a green wall, and even then later he was struck by downy mildew.

With a lack of potassium, the leaves become grayish, begin to age prematurely, and acquire a corrugated surface. You can feed such plants with potassium sulfate (potassium sulfate), it dissolves well. You can sprinkle between rows, loosen, and then water. Ash is often used, but if you added lime or dolomite flour in the fall, and in the spring before planting onions - ash, then it is better to add potassium sulfate in the top dressing.

With a lack of phosphorus in old leaves, the tops die off, they even turn black. Feed with superphosphate. This is a difficult-to-dissolve fertilizer, you shouldn't dissolve it in water or hammer it - it takes a lot of time. Just sprinkle fertilizer on the aisles, loosen and water. But if you need to feed the plants faster, there are easily soluble fertilizers for this: urea phosphate, potassium monophosphate. And most often gardeners use Kemira. This fertilizer is best applied for digging in preparation for planting onions. If you want to feed the plants with this fertilizer, then you do not need to dissolve it in water - just sprinkle it between the rows, loosen the soil and water it. I mostly do without feeding.

I use potassium chloride against onion flies - 3-4 tablespoons per 10 liters of water. Then I spill the soil with this solution, pour it directly into the nests of the bulbs. The first years of these pests coincides with the cherry blossoms, onion leaves at this time grow by about 5-10 cm. I miss the first year, since the bulbs are still deep in the soil. The second year of the onion fly occurs in late July and early August.

At this time, we are already preparing for harvesting and forget to fight the fly. But there is also an onion hover - a bronze. Its years coincide with the flowering of wild rose, its larvae damage the bottom of the onion. The methods of dealing with it are the same as with the onion fly. The second year of hoverflies occurs in late July and early August. Onions can be spilled against these pests with a salt solution - 1 glass per 10 liters of water, and also with an ash solution, or rather, lye - 1 liter of ash per 10 liters of boiling water, let the solution brew for a couple of days and spill each nest with it. It can be sprinkled with deterrents - black pepper, tobacco, ash, mothballs and coniferous preparations. There are many more other pests who want to feast on a young onion, and there are even more diseases.

Our plots are very thick with plantings, we want to grow everything, so sometimes onions do not get the best places. Therefore, when growing it, I pay special attention to ensuring good ventilation, airflow of the site, and for this, I make the distance when planting large. For example, let's take 2008 - the year of Jupiter, 2009 - the year of Mars - they are favorable for the harvest of vegetables. Onions and garlic were then large, ripe well.

And the Danilovsky-301 variety was generally huge, there were 4 bulbs in the nests, although it is considered 1-2 primordial (1-2 bulbs in the nest). But in 2011 - the year of Venus - this variety did not grow large - there were one, rarely two bulbs per nest. Sevok was her own, she ran the ridge herself, that is, she did everything as always, but the onion grew small, for some reason it began to lay on the ground early. Moreover, this situation was not only for me, but also for all the neighbors.

Once my planting of onions was struck by downy mildew, the garden was then blocked from the wind by a greenhouse, I introduced organic matter, fed it with slurry, it was warm, it was raining. Here is the green wall of the onion and was covered with a lilac bloom. I did not wait for the further manifestation of the disease. She mowed the plantings with a sickle, did not lay the diseased feathers on the ground, but wrapped them in paper and, carefully, so as not to scatter them over the site, took them to the hole that my husband dug. From the cut onions, the juice poured out on the ground like a fountain.

I was not too lazy, each bulb (and they were already looking out of the ground) turned 90 degrees, i.e. tore at the roots. A day later, the juice stopped oozing, and I put all the onions in a bright, warm room on the second floor. She peeled all the onions, took off her shirt to white and cut the roots. Having spread it out in one row, I left the onion to dry. He dried well, dressed in a clean, nice shirt. One gardener taught me this, with whom we once went to seminars for a long time. She advised doing this with tulips if they look suspicious.

Turnip onions from seeds in one summer

I practice this way. I sow nigella seeds not in wide grooves, as on sowing, but in narrow ones. I do not thin out the seedlings for seeding, and if I have sown to get the bulbs, then it is necessary to thin out.

I do the first thinning when 1-2 true leaves grow, I leave the distance between shoots 2 cm. Plants that are removed can be transplanted separately, then you will get an additional crop of bulbs.

The second thinning and the last I do when 3-4 leaves grow. I give a distance of 4-6 cm. The removed plants now go to the salad.

After each thinning it is necessary to water the crops and loosen the soil. You can sow black onions in the fall, then the seedlings will appear earlier in the spring than with the usual spring sowing. For many years I have sowed seeds of onion hybrids Dinaro F1, Opporoto F1, but now they have disappeared from the market. I checked the Odintsovets variety. It works just as well.

In the non-chernozem zone, a bulb is obtained in one summer from the seeds of varieties: Strigunovsky, Myachkovsky, Danilovsky -301, Mstersky, Olin, Carmen (I do not like the latter, he gets his hands very dirty), Golden Semko. In addition to the above-mentioned hybrids, the Odintsovets variety gave me a good result. I can’t say anything about the other named varieties, because I haven’t tried to grow them, so I don’t know what their growing season is, whether they will ripen in our lowland area.

Perennial bows

I have a separate ridge for them. It's easier to look after. Only it should be isolated away from ordinary onions and garlic, because some pests and diseases hibernate on certain types of perennial onions. In the first place I have the slime onion, and then all the rest. Ramson has been growing under the apple tree for many years. But not in the near-trunk circle, because there we sometimes disturb the soil, but at the trunk itself, so that the shadow is there all day.

Caring for perennial onions consists in weeding, feeding with humus, manure.

I wish all gardeners success in the new season!