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Starting Your Onions From Seed

© Arzeena Hamir

Late January-early February is the time to start thinking about starting onion seed. Gardeners tend to grow onions for a variety of reasons: winter storage vegetables, delicate summer flavour, and even giant vegetable contests. Each of these uses calls for a different type of onion. Luckily, there are plenty of onion varieties to meet every gardener's needs.

Onion Types

Onions are members of the Allium family, which also includes leeks, garlic, scallions, and shallots. Onions form their distinctive bulbs in response to day length. There are 2 major types of onions: short-day and long-day. Short-day onions will start making bulbs early in the year when day length is only 10-12 hours. They are often mild and soft-fleshed making them unsuitable for storage. The more pungent long-day onions will bulb up much later in the year, when day length reaches 14-16 hours. As a general rule, long-day onions are planted north of the 36th parallel, in the northern states and Canada. Short-day onions do better in southern states.

Choosing a Variety

Although onions can be started from sets, seed will give gardeners access to a wider variety of onion cultivars. Choosing the right variety depends very much on what you prefer in your onions.

Giant onions, grown for exhibition or competition, start with the right variety. Ailsa Craig, Beacon, and Lancastrian are just some of the recommended varieties. Although they don't store well in the kitchen, their size and mild flavour are nonetheless prized.

For mild-flavored, normal-size onions, choose varieties like Walla Walla, Vidalia, or Sweet Spanish. These onions have a high sugar and water content which makes them excellent fresh-eating onions. However, these same attributes make them poor storage onions so eat them soon after harvesting.

Good storage onions require thick skins and high sulphur content. Sulphur is nutrient that gives onions their particular pungency (The capacity to make you cry is caused by this sulphur content as well). The sulphur prevents pests like fungus and insects from damaging the bulbs in storage. Varieties recommended for their storage capacity include Copra, Buffalo, and New York Early.

Starting Seed

Onion seeds do need to be bought fresh each year. Their germination rates do not last more than one year so don't plan all of your harvest around last years' seed. Growing your own transplants requires at least 7 weeks so time your sowing date so that you transplant after your last hard frost.

Onion seeds do require some warmth to germinate so start them indoors at this time of the year. Choose either a sterile seed mix or make your own seed starting mix with compost, sand, and peat or coir.

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