Alliums in Texas
;)
It’s nearing the time to plant your short-day onion starts in Central Texas. I was pleasantly surprised today to find a large flat-rate box packed full with 10 bunches (with 50-75 onion bulbs in each!) of Texas-adapted varieties we ordered had arrived for our cooperative garden. We ordered our starts from this farm in south Texas, since I realized way late in the game (a.k.a. January 3) that the short-day onion seed packets I’d ordered from Baker Creek needed to be well on their way to becoming onions by this time. Next year I’ll start my seeds in October, which is how the 10/15 onions got their name, by the way.
Last time we planted this many onions I ended up pickling and canning them (a week’s work well worth the loot), which proved to be a huge hit. Who knew pickled onions were so delicious and useful? (p.s. I used the recipe from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and stuck dried chipotle peppers directly into the jars for some added color and kick before ladling in onions.)
Canning, Garden & Outdoors, Gardening, Vegetables, Winter
Reader Comments (3)
I'm so excited for you!! I've never grown my own onions because I didn't think they'd yield enough to be worthwhile - I easily go through 4 onions a week. How many do you plant and how much space do they need?
Kristy, we plant 10 bunches, which is a whole lotta onions (50-75 onions in each)!! They need 4" of space between them to grow to full-size. We have a cooperative garden where we dedicate a couple whole rows to our onion harvest so the whole roster can be sure to get enough onions for weekly cooking when they're ready to harvest. I store them in our basement after curing so we have a stash to call upon for a couple months, too.
Immediately recognized the onions, love Dixondale Farms. Up in the great northeast we don't get ours until April 15 so tax day is now onion day in our house!