Onion sets..... onion starts and fall/winter planting ......

I picked up two more bags of the onion sets today.... I saw while I was out that winter vegetable seedlings were in the garden centers as well... One thing I saw that surprised me was the "other" kind of onion starts.. the one we buy in the spring that are in bundles and have little green tops on them... Yep I saw those at two garden centers today.. I thought mmmmm wonder how that would work out.......

No I didn't buy any of those kind of onions today.... BUT...... honeyman is framing in the ends on one hoop frame this weekend, that will give me two rows to work with.. putting in a door on each end and we are covering it all in plastic! I am going to see how growing inside it for the winter does....

Its my understanding these are called onions sets... the ones in the bundles that have the green tops on them too that are out in the spring are called onion starts.... if I have this straight lol

These are the ones I planted last year (yellow kind) that I wound up drying the tops and the bottoms and were so great. They never bulbed into big onions but they were great onions. They also dried so vibrant and pretty.  They were like green onions on steriods LOL... Kinda the size of a nice leek.. I dried the tops and the whites... 






Though we have warmed back up sighhhh 90 today and the next week 92, up to 95... now that doesn't make me feel much like winter veggies need to be out and if my hoop frame was all in plastic and only a door on each end to vent it????? I am thinking that it would be way to warm in there for winter vegetables at this stage... But I am going to plant it when I think we are safe to stay out of the 90s.. I may need to go ahead and pick up some cabbage seedlings now and just baby them in their six packs till I can plant them. I am thinking some Brussels sprouts as well... I have lots of greens seeds I am excited about and I am goin to try some fall radishes and try some beets and turnips.... I have never had a beet do squat here and I am hopeful that maybe over the winter I can get some to do something!!! Our weather is weird.. We are all over the place in the winter.. warm, cold, freezing in double digits, single digits.. you just don't know what its going to do. We can get snow, ice and we can also be wearing shorts on Christmas so its a crazy mix of temps here in the winter... lately our winters have been fairly cold so if that is a repeat the plastic covered hoop house should hopefully work out well!!!

Henny Penny I mailed the seeds today... they said 6 days... but could be sooner she said...

3 comments:

Henny Penny said...

Good grief! You can tell Poppy is home! I didn't see this post until just now. I am so excited about getting the seed. Knowing they belonged to you will make them extra special. Thank you! I can't believe you all are having temperatures up in the 90's again. We can have some pretty weird weather here too. I remember one Christmas it was in the 70's. Didn't even seem like Christmas. Hope your onions sets do good.

Cozy Thyme Cottage said...

I hope your hoop house works out for you! It will be wonderful to grow all those things during the winter! I dry chives but did not think of drying the onion tops. Do you use the dehydrator or just chop them and dry. I just chop the chives and lay on parchment paper on a cookie sheet to dry and stir once in awhile. Wonder if I could do onion tops the same way? Nancy

Texan said...

I use my dehydrator to dry everything I dry. But you could use your oven on a super low setting too. I have heard of people doing that. The tops on these onions were great for drying and eating. I don't dry the tops of the other kind of onions the ones I plant in the spring that turn into big onions. Those the tops might be to thick and tough I am thinking?