When to plant onion sets in the fall before winter

Content

1 Good seeding is the key to a successful harvest
2 Choosing the best time for sowing crops in the fall
3 Preparing the soil for onions
4 Important landing nuances
5 Why is it better to sow onions in the fall?

Many gardeners do not realize that planting onion sets before winter allows them to get a more generous harvest than planting the crop in the spring. To successfully grow winter onions, you need to follow some rules of agricultural technology, choose the appropriate variety and determine the best time for sowing. We will try to tell you in more detail about the benefits of autumn planting and all the important nuances of such cultivation in the proposed article, and perhaps next year the onion harvest in our country will break all records.

Good seeding is the key to a successful harvest

For autumn planting, it is very important to choose a high-quality seed of a suitable variety. Some types of onions not adapted to wintering: they die during the season of severe frosts or with the arrival of spring they shoot out an arrow. That is why for autumn planting you need to choose special winter varieties, such as “Stuttgart”, “Radar”, “Bessonovsky”, “Ellan”, “Shakespeare”. These varieties tolerate wintering well and produce a good harvest for the next year. Also resistant to freezing are the onions “Zolotnichok”, “Strugonovsky”, “Kip-Vel” and some types of this crop.It is worth noting that for each region you can select several zoned varieties of winter onions that exhibit their best qualities in specific climatic conditions.

Important! Early ripening varieties of the crop, as a rule, tolerate wintering well.

For those who first decided to plant seedlings on their plot of land in the fall, it is quite difficult to decide on the variety. In this case, it is recommended to familiarize yourself with winter varieties and choose onions with yellow skin and a sharp taste. White and red varieties are more capricious and may suffer in winter. In the first year of sowing, preference should be given to several varieties at once. In this case, you will probably be able to get a good harvest and select the best variety for yourself for next year.

Before planting, the seedlings must be sorted out:

Remove bulbs with signs of damage or disease.
Bulbs up to 1.5 cm in diameter should be selected for growing turnips by autumn planting.
Sets with a diameter of 1.5 cm or more can be planted before winter to obtain green feathers early.

For the winter, only selected seedlings should be planted. Dry and damaged specimens will not sprout in the spring, which means that the work invested will be wasted and the free areas of the plot will have to be sown again in the spring.

Onions selected through external inspection must be prepared in a certain way before planting:

Warming up the planting material will help prevent bolting. This activity must be carried out 1-2 weeks before planting the seeds in the ground, at a temperature of +40-+45⁰C for 8-10 hours. You can heat the onions near a heating radiator or in the oven, strictly controlling the temperature.
Disinfection will help remove pest larvae, fungal spores and viruses that are invisible to the eye from the surface of the bulbs. Processing of seedlings should consist of two stages. The first step is to soak the seeds in salt water for 3-4 hours. The salt concentration should be 1 tbsp. l. per 1 liter of clean water. After the saline solution, the planting material should be washed and soaked for 2 hours in a solution of potassium permanganate or copper sulfate.
Soaking in a solution of the drug "Epina", "Humate" or "Zircon" will allow the sets to take root faster, overwinter well and stock up on vital energy for subsequent growth.

All types of processing must be carried out sequentially. After using disinfectants, the seeds can be washed, dried and stored for some time. Treatment with preparations that stimulate root growth must be carried out immediately before planting. There is no need to wash off the active substance from the surface of the bulbs with water before sowing into the ground.

Choosing the best time for sowing crops in the fall

The autumn period is so long and unpredictable that it is impossible to navigate and choose a specific date for sowing onions. Each farmer must decide when to plant onion sets in the fall before winter independently, depending on the weather conditions in a particular region.

Winter onion sets should be planted at a time when daytime temperatures outside do not rise above +5⁰C. At night the temperature can drop to -4⁰C. In such conditions, the seedlings will take root, but will not produce green feathers. Under warmer conditions, the seedlings will begin to grow and will die with the onset of frost. If you plant onions at consistently subzero temperatures, they will not have time to take root and will also die in the winter.It takes about 40 days for the sevka to take root. After this time, weather disasters are not dangerous for onions.

If you analyze the climatic conditions of some regions, you can give the following advice on the timing of autumn planting:

In the Leningrad region, onions should be planted in early October.
For the Moscow region, the best time for planting is mid-October.
In Volgograd, it is necessary to plant onions in late October - early November.
Farmers in Western Siberia can start working from mid to late October.

It is worth noting that the proposed dates are not exact, they should be considered as a recommendation and the planting date of the seedlings should be adjusted depending on the long-term weather forecast.

Pre-winter planting of onion sets can be carried out, including taking into account the recommendations of the lunar calendar. It has long been noted that the phase of the Earth’s natural satellite significantly affects the development and growth of plants. Thus, sowing onion sets in open ground is not recommended during the full moon.

Thus, when choosing the time to plant winter onions, you need to analyze the long-term weather forecast. If no surges in warming are predicted, and stable frosts will come only in a month, then you need to look at the lunar calendar and start autumn planting.

Preparing the soil for onions

Before planting onion sets before winter, you need to examine your site and choose the most suitable place for growing this crop. It should be well illuminated by sunlight and protected from strong northern winds. Onions cannot grow in wetlands. It is preferable to plant onions on a hill, where in the spring the water will not linger long after the snow melts.

Important! Excess moisture can be removed by creating artificial drainage systems or high ridges.

For onions, as for any other crops, good and bad predecessors can be distinguished. So, it is recommended to sow onions in the place where cabbage, greens or radishes previously grew. Cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes and legumes are also favorable precursors for onion sets. It is not recommended to grow onions after radishes, celery or carrots.

You need to dig up the bed and prepare the soil 2-3 weeks before planting the onions. During this period, the soil will become compacted, which means that the planted bulbs will not be washed away by melt water when spring arrives. The soil should be disinfected before the formation of ridges, since various pests show increased interest in fresh seedlings in the autumn. The soil should be disinfected with a solution of manganese or copper sulfate. If you decide to use vitriol, then its concentration should be 1 tbsp. l. on a bucket of water. This volume of liquid is enough to water 5 m² soil.

The soil for growing winter onions must not only be loosened and disinfected, but also fertilized. You need to add rotted organic matter and minerals in the fall. At 1 m² soil should be added 3-5 kg of humus, depending on the initial condition of the soil and 2 tbsp. l. double superphosphate. If you have wood ash, you can use that too.

Fertilizers must be evenly distributed over the entire surface of the soil and mixed with garden soil. Form ridges from the resulting substrate and level their surface.

Important! The optimal height of the bed for onions is 18-20 cm. On higher beds there is a possibility of the sets freezing, and on low beds the bulbs may dry out with the arrival of the spring thaw.

Soil moisture is very important for sowing in autumn. Therefore, in dry weather, a day before sowing the crop in the ground, it is recommended to thoroughly water the ridges. This will once again compact the soil and create a favorable environment for growing the plant’s root system.

Important landing nuances

Not every practicing gardener knows exactly how to plant seedlings correctly. The procedure, at first glance, is very simple, but it has several important nuances that may not allow you to grow onions planted for the winter:

Small sets, up to 1.5 cm in diameter, cannot be buried deep in the ground, since in this case it may not germinate. The optimal depth for such planting material is only 2-3 cm.
Large sets grown for feathers must be planted to a depth of 3-4 cm.
Settling without soil cover or under a thin layer of it will probably freeze in winter.
Onions must be planted in staggered rows, at a distance of 15-20 cm from each other.
Between the splinters in the same row you should maintain a distance of 7-10 cm.

To understand exactly how to plant onion sets, you can consider the diagram below. It marks all the distances and the staggered method of placing planting material in the garden bed.

Pre-winter sowing of seedlings must be accompanied by mulching of the beds. A layer of mulch made from peat, straw, and dry leaves will help protect winter onions from frost. The weather is especially terrible for crops when frost has already set in and there is no snow yet. At this time, mulch will be the only salvation for young onions.

Advice! After the bulbs are planted, the beds should never be covered with plastic wrap. Breathable geotextiles can be used as a covering material.

The mulch in the garden bed must be maintained throughout the winter. To prevent strong winds from blowing it away, spruce branches and dry branches can be placed on top of the leaves and straw. With the arrival of spring warmth, the mulch must be removed from the garden bed so that the soil warms up faster and the seedlings begin to grow.

Further care of the crop is standard. It includes regular watering, weeding and loosening the soil. Planting and caring for winter onions is well described in the video:

In this video, an experienced specialist will talk about the important advantages of the winter growing method and clearly demonstrate the process of planting winter onions.

Why is it better to sow onions in the fall?

Planting in the fall allows the onions to grow and ripen at least 2 weeks earlier compared to spring planting.

In addition to this important advantage, winter-grown onions and the technology itself have other advantages:

Planting onions before winter is a preventative measure to combat downy mildew.
Having planted seedlings in the ground in the fall, you do not need to worry about the safety of planting material in winter.
In the fall, the gardener has much more free time, which can be devoted to planting winter onions.
It is much more profitable to purchase seedlings in the fall than at the height of the spring sowing season.
Winter onions store well and for a long time.
Rooted in winter, the set is resistant to the onion fly.
In winter, natural selection of only the strongest seedlings occurs. Weak bulbs die out. In their place, you can sow a little fresh seed in the spring. At the same time, planting material preserved from winter produces the highest quality, most productive onions.
By planting before winter, you can significantly increase crop yield.

So is it possible to sow onions for the winter? Of course, it is possible and even necessary, because such planting has a number of advantages and allows you to get only the best harvest of high-quality vegetables. But in order for the farmer’s efforts to be crowned with success, it is necessary to correctly select the crop variety, accurately determine the planting time and properly prepare the soil and planting material, mulch the ridges after sowing the seedlings. All these and other nuances of growing winter onions are described in detail in the article above. If all of the above rules are observed, even in the northern regions of the country it will be possible to successfully use the proposed cultivation method and be content with an excellent onion harvest.