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Many gardeners do not even realize that planting onion sets before winter allows you to get a more generous harvest than planting a crop in spring. To successfully grow winter onions, you need to follow some agricultural rules, choose the right variety and determine the best time for sowing. We will try to talk in more detail about the advantages of autumn planting and all the important nuances of such cultivation in the proposed article, and, perhaps, already next year, the onion harvest in the domestic open spaces will break all records.
Good sowing is the key to a successful harvest
For autumn planting, it is very important to choose a high-quality set of a suitable variety. Some types of onions not adapted for wintering: they die in the season of severe frosts or release an arrow with the arrival of spring. That is why for the autumn planting it is necessary to choose special winter varieties, such as "Stuttgart", "Radar", "Bessonovsky", "Ellan", "Shakespeare". These varieties tolerate wintering in the best way and give a good harvest for the next year. Also resistant to freezing are the onions "Zolotnichok", "Strugonovsky", "Kip-Vel" and some types of this culture. It is worth noting that for each region, you can pick up several zoned varieties of winter onions, which show their best qualities in specific climatic conditions.
For those who first decided to plant sevok on their land plot in the fall, it is quite difficult to decide on a variety. In this case, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with winter varieties and choose onions with yellow husks and a pungent taste. White and red varieties are more "capricious" and can suffer in winter. In the first year of sowing, preference should be given to several varieties at once. In this case, you will probably be able to get a good harvest and select the best variety for yourself for the next year.
Before planting the sets, you must definitely sort out:
- Remove bulbs with signs of damage, disease.
- Bulbs up to 1.5 cm in diameter, choose for growing turnip by autumn planting.
- Sevok with a diameter of 1.5 cm or more can be planted before winter for early production of green feathers.
For the winter, you need to plant only selected sets. Dry and damaged specimens will not sprout in the spring, which means that the invested work will be wasted and the free areas of the site will have to be sown again in the spring.
Onions selected by external inspection must be prepared in a certain way before planting:
- Warming up the planting material will help to avoid shooting. It is necessary to carry out this event 1-2 weeks before planting the seedlings in the ground, at a temperature of + 40- + 450C for 8-10 hours. Onions can be heated near a heating battery or in the oven, strictly controlling the temperature.
- Disinfection will help remove pest larvae, fungal spores and viruses that are not visible to the eye from the surface of the bulbs. Sevka processing should consist of two stages. The first step is to soak the seedlings in salt water for 3-4 hours. The salt concentration should be 1 tbsp. l. for 1 liter of clean water. After the saline solution, the planting material must be washed and soaked for 2 hours in a solution of potassium permanganate or copper sulfate.
- Soaking in a solution of the drug "Epina", "Humata" or "Zircon" will allow the seed to take root faster, winter well and stock up on vital energy for subsequent growth.
All types of processing must be carried out sequentially.After using disinfecting substances, the seedlings can be washed, dried and stored for some time. Treatment with drugs that stimulate root growth must be carried out immediately before planting. It is not necessary to wash off the active substance from the surface of the bulbs with water before sowing into the ground.
Choosing the best time for sowing crops in the fall
The autumn period is so long and unpredictable that it is impossible to navigate and choose a specific date for sowing onions. Each farmer should decide when to plant onion sets in the fall before winter, depending on the weather conditions in a particular region.
Winter onion sets should be planted at a time when outside daytime temperatures do not rise above +50C. At night, the temperature can drop to -40C. Under these conditions, the seedlings will root, but will not produce green feathers. Under warmer conditions, the seedlings will begin to grow and will die with the onset of frost. If you plant the onion at stable subzero temperatures, then it will not have time to take root and will also die in winter. Sevka takes about 40 days to root. After this time, weather disasters are not terrible for the bow.
If you analyze the climatic conditions of some regions, then you can give the following tips on the timing of the autumn planting of seedlings:
- In the Leningrad Region, onions should be planted in early October.
- For the Moscow region, the best time for planting is in mid-October.
- In Volgograd, it is necessary to plant onions in late October - early November.
- Farmers of Western Siberia can start working from mid to late October.
It is worth noting that the proposed dates are not accurate, they should be considered as a recommendation and the planting date of the sevka should be adjusted depending on the long-term weather forecast.
Podzimnya planting onion sets can be carried out, including, taking into account the recommendations of the lunar calendar. It has long been noted that the phase of the natural satellite of the Earth significantly affects the development and growth of plants. So, sowing onion sets in open ground is not recommended during the full moon.
Thus, when choosing the time for planting winter onions, you need to analyze the long-term weather forecast. If warming jumps are not predicted, and stable frosts will come only in a month, then you need to look into the lunar calendar and start the autumn planting.
Preparing the soil for onions
Before planting onion sets for the winter, you need to explore your site and choose the most suitable place to grow this crop. It should be well lit by the sun and protected from strong northerly winds. Onions cannot grow in wetlands. It is preferable to plant onions on a hill, where in spring the water will not linger for a long time after the snow melts.
For onions, as for any other crops, there are good and bad predecessors. So, sowing onions is recommended in the place where cabbage, greens or radishes used to grow. Cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes and legumes are also favorable precursors for onion sets. It is not recommended to grow onions after radishes, celery or carrots.
You need to dig up the garden and prepare the soil 2-3 weeks before planting the onions. During this period, the soil will be compacted, which means that the planted bulbs with the arrival of spring will not be washed out with melt water. The soil should be disinfected before the formation of ridges, since various pests in the autumn period show an increased interest in fresh seedlings. Disinfect the soil with a solution of manganese or copper sulfate. If it is decided to use vitriol, then its concentration should be 1 tbsp. l. on a bucket of water. This volume of liquid is sufficient for irrigation of 5 m2 soil.
The soil for growing winter onions must not only be loosened and disinfected, but also fertilized.In the fall, you need to rotate organic matter and minerals. 1 m2 soil should be added 3-5 kg of humus, depending on the initial state of the soil and 2 tbsp. l. double superphosphate. If there is wood ash, you can use it as well.
Fertilizers must be evenly distributed over the entire soil surface and mixed with garden soil. Form ridges from the resulting substrate and level their surface.
For planting in the autumn, soil moisture is very important. Therefore, in dry weather, a day before sowing the culture in the ground, it is recommended to thoroughly water the ridges. This will once again compact the soil and create a favorable environment for the growth of the plant's root system.
Important nuances of landing
Not every practicing gardener knows exactly how to plant sevok correctly. The procedure, at first glance, is very simple, but it has several important nuances that may not allow growing onions planted for the winter:
- Small seedlings, up to 1.5 cm in diameter, cannot be buried deeply into the soil, since in this case it may not germinate. The optimum depth for such planting material is only 2-3 cm.
- A large set grown on a feather must be sealed to a depth of 3-4 cm.
- Sevok without soil cover or under a thin layer of it will probably freeze out in winter.
- Onions must be planted in staggered rows, at a distance of 15-20 cm from each other.
- A distance of 7-10 cm should be kept between splinters in one row.
To understand exactly how to plant onion sets, you can consider the diagram below. All distances and a staggered method of placing planting material in the garden are marked on it.
Podzimny sowing sevka must be accompanied by mulching the ridges. A layer of mulch made from peat, straw, dry leaves will help protect winter onions from frost. The weather is especially terrible for crops, when frosts have already come, and there is still no snow. At this time, mulch will be the only salvation for young onions.
The mulch in the garden must be preserved throughout the entire winter period. To prevent strong winds from blowing it away, spruce branches and dry branches can be put on top of leaves and straw. With the arrival of spring heat, the mulch must be removed from the garden so that the soil warms up faster and the seedlings begin to grow.
Further care of the culture is standard. It includes regular watering, weeding and loosening of the soil. Planting and caring for winter onions is well described in the video:
An experienced specialist in this video will tell you about the important advantages of the winter growing method and demonstrate clearly the process of planting winter onions.
Why is it better to sow onions in autumn
Planting in the fall allows the onions to grow, ripen at least 2 weeks earlier than planting in spring.
In addition to this important advantage, onions grown in winter and the technology itself have other advantages:
- Planting onions before winter is a preventive measure against peronosporosis.
- Having planted the seedlings in the ground in the fall, there is no need to worry about the safety of the planting material in the winter.
- In the fall, the gardener has much more free time to devote to planting winter onions.
- It is much more profitable to buy seedlings in the fall than at the height of the spring sowing season.
- Winter onions can be stored well and for a long time.
- Rooted in winters, sets are resistant to onion flies.
- In winter, only the strongest seedlings are naturally selected. Weak bulbs are dying out. In their place, in the spring, you can sow a little fresh seed. At the same time, the planting material preserved from the winter gives the highest quality, high-yielding onions.
- With the help of planting before winter, you can significantly increase the yield of the crop.
So is it possible to sow onions for the winter? Of course, it is possible and even necessary, because such a planting has a number of advantages and allows you to get only the best harvest of high quality vegetables. But in order for the work of the farmer to be crowned with success, it is necessary to correctly choose the variety of culture, accurately determine the planting time and properly prepare the soil and planting material, mulch the ridges after sowing the seedlings. All these and other nuances of growing winter onions are described in detail in the proposed article above. If all these rules are observed, even in the northern regions of the country, it will be possible to successfully use the proposed growing method and be content with an excellent onion harvest.
