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Post by feather on Mar 6, 2020 19:48:57 GMT
I see LIFE! We harvested onion seed last year. These are the long day keeper onions that we just used up this past couple weeks from last year's harvest.
So far we planted onion seed in some winter sown jugs that are outside. And I planted onion seed a few days ago in 2 flats on a heat mat, in a south facing window.
I have 9 green sprouts of onion. YAY!
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Post by bowdonkey on Mar 7, 2020 12:17:19 GMT
Alright! I also planted onion seed last week. Did it a little different due to the #$% £! chickens. I used those plastic salad greens containers. Filled them with potting mix, soaked it in snow melt and stored them in an old truck I have laying around here. I haven't figured out what to do when they sprout. Might have to just take the lids off and water every other day. I also started some Glacier Red Shallots. I have an excellent Bog Shallot, but the shiny red skins were so pretty that I bought some from Fedco. I think there's a bedtime story about that transaction!
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Post by feather on Mar 7, 2020 13:07:43 GMT
I like those salad containers for planting. After they sprout indoors or out, they can handle cooler temperatures. So my inside ones, once they germinate and have a week or two, I'll put them out in the cover frame so they aren't taking up room inside the house in front of the south facing windows. (that's where my tomato and pepper plants grow) They stay out there until the middle to end of May when we put them in the garden. bowdonkey, a story? Is it more of a nightmare kind of story?
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Post by midtnmama on Mar 7, 2020 15:13:46 GMT
Alright! I also planted onion seed last week. Did it a little different due to the #$% £! chickens. I used those plastic salad greens containers. Filled them with potting mix, soaked it in snow melt and stored them in an old truck I have laying around here. I haven't figured out what to do when they sprout. Might have to just take the lids off and water every other day. I also started some Glacier Red Shallots. I have an excellent Bog Shallot, but the shiny red skins were so pretty that I bought some from Fedco. I think there's a bedtime story about that transaction! Oh Boy! I love the "old truck as a greenhouse idea"!!! I have used an old truck for drying.Let us know when they have germinated!
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Post by feather on Mar 8, 2020 21:34:24 GMT
18 now, new little onion babies.
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onions
Mar 9, 2020 13:20:25 GMT
Post by laurazone5 on Mar 9, 2020 13:20:25 GMT
This is my first year trying onions from seed.
I planted chippolini's and leeks.
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Post by feather on Mar 9, 2020 13:41:53 GMT
This is my first year trying onions from seed. I planted chippolini's and leeks. I looked up chippolini's, it means 'little onion' in italian. They are mild and sweet. Yum.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2020 15:29:06 GMT
I cheated, and planted around 1000 onion sets. Got some of the garlic in late (about 3 weeks ago) but better late than never. Got 2 blueberry bushes planted, and 5 new asparagus crowns. Yesterday, I should have been out there weeding another bed and planting peas and greens, but I blew it off. Today, it's raining. Rather than beat myself up for not getting out there yesterday, I will be grateful for the rain watering what is in the beds now, and also for the water that loosens the weeds in the remaining beds.
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Post by feather on Mar 10, 2020 20:19:13 GMT
@pony, garlic, better late than never. Lots of stuff you put in.
26 baby onion sprouts!
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onions
Mar 11, 2020 11:23:28 GMT
Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 11:23:28 GMT
@pony , garlic, better late than never. Lots of stuff you put in. 26 baby onion sprouts! I've not yet had success with onion from seed, but maybe I should go out there and give it a try.
What I'm really missing is my multiplier onions. Must look into that this year as well...
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onions
Mar 11, 2020 11:27:04 GMT
Post by bowdonkey on Mar 11, 2020 11:27:04 GMT
0 onion sprouts.
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onions
Mar 11, 2020 13:33:08 GMT
Post by feather on Mar 11, 2020 13:33:08 GMT
patience or bad seed? I had extremely bad luck with seeds bought, entire packets with zero germination. I had good luck with mako seeds from Weed here, and now with the seed we harvested last year. Check the packet for the date. Onion seeds have good germination the first year, then lesser so in the following years. bowdonkey, if you don't get germination in 7-11 days and the temperatures are warm in the car, PM me your address and I'll send you some of ours--long day keeper onions.
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Post by feather on Mar 13, 2020 18:07:06 GMT
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onions
Mar 13, 2020 20:59:05 GMT
Post by midtnmama on Mar 13, 2020 20:59:05 GMT
Ok feather, I think this social distancing thing is getting to you. That was funny btw.
Question: Do you save your seed for onions? What else?
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onions
Mar 13, 2020 21:14:02 GMT
Post by feather on Mar 13, 2020 21:14:02 GMT
Ok feather, I think this social distancing thing is getting to you. That was funny btw. Question: Do you save your seed for onions? What else? Yes the social distancing is almost comical, and that onion mask was hilarious.
Yes we started to save onion seed last year, taking @weed, s lead. He was saving and sharing mako seeds and it was such a nice thing, what he did with packaging them and sending them out. He vacuum packed them in little plastic envelopes. He was so generous. Onion seeds are notorious for not germinating after they are 2 years old, so we took to saving those. This summer we will grow mako/utah yellow (may have crossed?) that lasted until now, so also long keepers.
It was second year onions that had made it through the winter, so probably more mako's than walla wallas. The stalks were 4-5 feet tall with a beautiful flower, and wonderful seed, which we froze after cleaning it up. Long day onions. I have extra seed if anyone wants some for the price of postage. Long day onions--above a certain parallel, in the northern part of the US.
I'm going to save the red and purple centered radish seed. I save san marzano and paquebot roma tomato seed, tons of those. I still have cilantro/coriander I saved. I've saved pepper seeds but they are just not reliable for germination. I saved basil seed, again poor germination. I'll let some of our lettuces and kales go to seed this year (it takes up a bit of time and space to let them go this way), to replenish for next year as most of my lettuce seed is getting old and I'd like to throw away some of the old seed.
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onions
Mar 22, 2020 0:45:34 GMT
Post by bowdonkey on Mar 22, 2020 0:45:34 GMT
It's alive! They came up two days ago. Always makes me smile when it's seed you saved.
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onions
Mar 22, 2020 1:10:14 GMT
Post by feather on Mar 22, 2020 1:10:14 GMT
It's alive! They came up two days ago. Always makes me smile when it's seed you saved. Yay! It always makes me smile when a plant sprout jumps up to say 'hi'.
My onion seeds didn't germinate in great numbers, so we put in another 200%, better safe than sorry. I sprinkled cinnamon on the surface and we moved them to the family room in front of the big south facing patio door, hoping for good things to happen.
Our pimento peppers didn't germinate so we planted some hatch peppers in their place since we had the hatch pepper seeds, 'hatching'.
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onions
Mar 31, 2020 20:47:35 GMT
Post by bowdonkey on Mar 31, 2020 20:47:35 GMT
I checked the onion sprouts today and everything is coming along fine. And the Glacier Rose shallots are finely coming up, yeah. The first shallots I ever tried from seed. I wonder if next year they will come back true from bulbs? Maybe I'll give Fedco a call.
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Post by chewytrees on May 12, 2020 0:06:46 GMT
Hello All, Just joined the forum. Look forward to following all your grows as well as sharing information! Recently received some Mako seed/sets and Amish bottle onion seeds from Martin paquebot, so I am interested to see how my foray into growing onions will go. Certainly interesting weather I've had the past few days, between snow and temperatures dipping to 31 F at night, should make a good growing season! I am in Northern NJ, so I am interested to know if anything else has had success with Mako, as I have seen previous discussions regarding latitude and Mako bulb sizes. The planted sets have come up already, about 1.5 weeks after planting...and I will start sowing the Amish about mid June. Only concern I have is the area where I am doing this may not have the best sun exposure as compared my main garden, receiving about 6-7 hours of direct sunlight. I have overwintered garlic also growing there, and while healthy looking..is not as large as a buddy who planted same time as me... So any advice, tips is welcome and I look forward to this growing season!
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Post by feather on May 12, 2020 0:30:49 GMT
chewytrees, welcome! Mr feather planted some mako seeds in our winter sown jugs and they are as nice as the onions I planted from seed, in flats in the house. We are looking forward to our onion crop this year. (we are in SE Wisconsin, pretty much full sun, and we get them about baseball size)
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Post by feather on May 22, 2020 17:17:43 GMT
Look look look. Mr Feather took up midtnmama,'s way of winter sown. In a friendly competition with my flat raised indoor onions. Thanks girlfriend. One of our most difficult things in Wisconsin is staying busy nov dec jan feb march and midtnmama said we ought to look into winter sown seeds, so we did, and mr feather turned feb and march into productive months collecting jugs and cutting and cleaning them and filling them with dirt, then watering them, putting seeds in, labeling them, and putting them out in the snow on the deck. Where we can for the most part ignore them, maybe check them once a month to make sure they are moist. I also started seeds in my traditional way in flats that take up time for watering and square footage indoors. But now the time to compare is here! There is a clear winner. What's the difference? Winter sown is just put together and then ignored, while flats take watering and a southern window for months. And look at those corona style lack of hair cuts on those beauties in the winter sown seeds. bowdonkey, I think you might like this method in MN. It's just great and I'll never plant them in flats again.
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onions
May 22, 2020 18:33:42 GMT
Post by bowdonkey on May 22, 2020 18:33:42 GMT
I'm done planting in flats too. I've had bad luck with chickens, dogs and wind wiping out my young plants. Everything sprouts like gang busters then fortuna raises her ugly head. This year was really dry and I ran out of rain water for watering. There are 8 20-35 gal rainwater containers.So like in the past I used tap water. We have soft water and it always worked in a pinch in the past. This year the dang thing malfunctioned and pure salt water from the brine tank was on tap for a cycle. Didn't know it till the boy stopped by for a visit and grabbed a glass of water and yuck. They were dead the next day.. All including those beautiful red shallots I was looking forward too more than anything else in the world. Knowing that Fortuna would probably strike again I had planted a hundred sets each of yellow and red onions and about 75 bog shallots. So all is good. I'm checking, out some direct seeding methods for next year.
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Post by feather on May 22, 2020 18:49:44 GMT
bowdonkey, the winter sown seeds, just exist off of the water in them evaporating then condensing on them for the most part. I've had my water softener cause problems if I ran it in the middle of a cycle, I'd get coffee that was full of salt. So now we have a new one and we aren't having that problem. But what we do have, is when the plants get to a certain height, I start adding fertilizer, off brand of miracle grow, and if I make it too strong, it will kill the plant, but too weak and it won't help, so it's a balance issue I have to watch. I use just 1/2 tsp to a gallon seems to be just about right. But in the winter sown onions, I hadn't even started them on it and wow they look great. You can see the yellow tips, they are probably getting all the nutrition available in the soil and 'just' running out. I'll be so happy when mr feather gets home and takes a look at his friendly competition winner. Next year, I'm guessing we'll need 6 winter sown onion jugs. We like to have 200-300 onions for a year, I use one onion almost every day.
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