To get a good harvest of onions in the beds of your suburban area, you need to follow several basic rules for growing it. They are not difficult.
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First, it is the condition of the soil. As a light root product, onions do not like heavy soils. Only loose, crumbly soils are suitable for him. However, they should not be depleted. The bow itself draws out the maximum of useful elements from them. If it is sown or planted in the same place for more than two seasons, then the bulbs will simply not find the strength to grow further.
The same applies to a number of common garden crops that impoverish the soil: potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, carrots, and garlic. All these crops intensively take nutrients from the soil and require frequent and abundant feeding. After them, there is no place for an onion for the next season.
It is noticed that if onions were grown in the same garden for two seasons in a row, then the next normal harvest in the same place can be obtained only after a few years. Only after 3-4 years the land will become 100% suitable again for growing this crop.
Onions will not produce the expected yield in wet soils. The bulbs in them will simply rot. Soils with high acidity are also contraindicated onions. They significantly increase the risk of plant disease with powdery mildew, and the process of assimilation of nutrients by them slows down.
You can start preparing the onion beds in the fall. They are dug up, bringing in compost mass, humus or rotted manure. It will not be superfluous to add a little sand - it will give the necessary looseness to the soil.
Seed material
The onion yield will depend on the type and quality of the seed. The fastest harvest can be obtained from onion sets. These are small onions. After soaking for a day in ordinary water, they are simply stuck into the loosened soil, and after a week, green shoots will appear from each onion, which can be put into a salad. It makes no sense to use growth stimulants for onions - it seems that it will grow on Mars as well.
Nevertheless, he may die if he is deprived of the required amount of moisture. Moreover, both positions of the pendulum of humidity are dangerous here: an excess is death, and a lack of water is death. Here you need to find a compromise, focusing on the weather conditions.
Top dressing
Growing onions on depleted soils involves top dressing. Manure will perfectly enrich the soil, but it will not affect the taste of root crops in the best way. For onions, feeding from wood ash or yeast solution is more suitable.
Pests
The most famous plant pest is the onion fly. It is advisable to start prophylaxis from it already at the appearance of the first shoots. An effective remedy is ammonia: a tablespoon for 5 liters of water. The beds are simply watered periodically with this mixture. It is also advisable to use wood ash, which is a natural enemy of garden ants and slugs. Tinctures of odorous herbs (mint, wormwood) will scare off many pests.
Harvesting and storage
Green onions (feathers) please summer residents throughout the season. Surprisingly, many plant him precisely for the sake of the pen. However, when it's time to harvest, not everyone will raise a hand to compost the bulbs. And the steps to preserve them are not difficult: cut off the feathers from the bulbs and dry them a little more.
Onions are harvested in the first half of August. The main indicator that the bulbs are ripe is the yellowing of the feather. After harvesting, the bulbs must be stored in a well-ventilated area so that the nutrients from the feathers will pass into them. Before being sent for storage, the feathers are carefully cut off, and the onion is additionally dried again.
The process of growing onions is simple. And it may seem that buying it in the store is elementary. Only a product of the same quality as grown on your site cannot be found in any store!
Do you know how to maximize onion yield?
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