Planting Red Wethersfield Onion Seedlings. 3.6.22

This is the first pot of the Red Wethersfield onion seedlings, started in early January. They look healthy but small. Onions are a reasonably cold weather plant, and I've planted them this early before with good success. A frost is predicted in three days. This container was outside diring a hard freeze and not a single plant was damaged.

Onion roots don't wind around a lot, and they come apart easily for planting outside. I planted them about four inches apart. Being close together, the final onions may be a bit smaller. That's fine with me, giant onions don't keep as well and it's hard to use a whole giant onion at one time. Smaller ones mean less waste. Before planting, I mixed about a third of a bag of biochar, and half a bag of steer manure compost into the raised bed soil. So it should be pretty rich.

Onions need to grow healthy tops somthey can grow healthy onions. Planting them early in rich soil gives them a nice boost. Slugs and birds like onion plants. I gave a preventive dose of organic slug bait, and covered with a birdie fence.