Onions!

This year's garden experiment is in onions.  The bulb kind, not the scallion kind.  There appears to be a lot of debate in the gardening world between the people who grow sets, and the ones who grow their onions from seed.  I did sets last year, and they did well enough...except for storage.  My onions lasted about a month, then got soft and started rotting from the inside out.  But that's what you get when planting red or sweet varieties; they just don't store as well as yellows.

But this year I want more.  Many more, actually.  And according to the forums, one can grow bigger onions from seed than one can from a set.  And provided that I can cure my onions properly, it's possible I can provide enough onions for nearly 9 months of our eating them.

Onions are pretty easy, really...provided that you start them early enough.  I was supposed to start them in the fall, but I guess Valentine's Day will just have to be good enough.  If worse comes to worst, I'll just be harvesting them later in the summer than I had originally planned.

Get the seed

Plant them in the pots














Can I help, Mommy?

Keep them warm!

















A week later, baby onions!

I'll keep updates on how they're doing.  Right now they're about a month old, and still looking chive-like and frail.  But every day I "pet" them to simulate the wind and make their stems grow straight and strong.  On nice days, I harden them off a bit outside.  When they get to be about 6 inches tall and about as thick as a pencil, they'll find a home outdoors for good.