My Onions Are Breaking
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Bill
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: May-30-2005 at 4:09pm
I bought my onions from Home Depot, a bag of seading onions marked Ebenezer.
All my onions were doing really good and they were all sticking up between roughly 9" - 18" but now they have all started breaking in half (the Stems)
I can't figure out why they would be breaking except for their own weight.
Am I doing something wrong? Are they suppose to do this?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
PS - I see them break and I get a tear in my eye (HA! I made an onion joke!)
Bill
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: Jun-03-2005 at 4:30pm
anyone? I really don't know what to do about this, I would say over half of them have broken now.
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-04-2005 at 8:11am
Bill,
I have been looking and asking but have found no similar experience so far. All the advice I could find on irrigation is based upon avoiding stress from dry conditions and not when it's too wet.
I suspicion that the problem is related to our heavy spring rains and the heat the week before you wrote your message. Like spliting tomatoes, the plants swelled too fast because of the heat and large amount of water in the root zone for the 'skin' to keep up.
Though it didn't rain here for most of the last third of the month, 2005 became the wettest May in the last ten years by the 19th of the month. Add the 92F days, remember that plant growth doubles with each 18F rise in temperature, and I think we may have the reason for your onion's problem.
You did get good plant size by then so I would just wait to see what develops.
Gary
Bill
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: Jun-04-2005 at 9:03am
Thanks again Gary,
That makes an awful lot of sense, and considering how big some of these onions are now it makes even more sense.
Some of them seem to be so big and healthy that two or three broken shoots (I think thats the word) don't seem to be even hurting them. A couple seem to be completely broken but still all green and trying. So like you suggest, I am just going to let them grow and see what happens.
Bill
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: Jun-29-2005 at 8:42am
Thought I would follow up with this, in case anyone has addiitonal thoughts or is curious.
Of my whole row of onions there are two plants left that have the shoots still going up into the air, all the rest of them (completely wild guess of maybe 50-60 onion plants) all have all their shoots (leaves or whatever I should call them) laying flat on the ground now.
I took a real good look at them and most of the shoots did not actually break, they just have fallen over. This made me start wondering if perhaps they were being close to done as thats how they look... (I'd have a record to maturity with this) so I pulled a couple to see how they were doing and sliced them up for my salad.
They tasted great, chopped em all up like chives since the bulbs were still small (but suprisingly big already).
Gary: I think this adds credence to theory above. I think the ones that didn't snap and go flat just have gotten so big and heavy, so quickly, they are now just laying flat and could not hold themselves up. Kind of look like green stars with lots of points in a way laying there like that. Some are so long they have reached into my tomatoes a whole row over!
They all seem to be doing good, just laying flat. The ones that had some shoots break are all still doing great too. So I am just letting them grow.
I can take some pics if my description doesn't make sense, but just imagine a big wind blowing straight down on em and spreading them out.
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-29-2005 at 11:17am
Bill,
Your description almost sounds like they are laying over like they were/are mature. But the bulb size is smaller than expected? Could be that they choose to mature early this year. I have grown the "Ebe's" but know others that have and I would expenct them to mature in late July and not early June.
I tried to find some photos of mature onions at the Dixondale Farms website but did not see any. They have two online guides and a booklet (in my stacks somewhere but not in hand). You can view one and link to the others at:
"Dixondale Onion Planting Guide"
As your description seems like mature plants, it seems to be time to start drying them. Thw weather today and tomorrow may give you the drier soil to get them out of the ground without mud. I intend to use these days on some of my garlic.
Gary
Bill
Location: Washington, Western Cascade Foothills
Posted: Jun-29-2005 at 4:09pm
I thought they took longer to mature, I planted them in May, I figured they would be done bout Sept... (showing my noobishness again)
So should I wait till a day or two now of sunshine and then pull them all up, wash them, and dry a day or so?
Really appreciate all your advice Gary, just hard to think these are done already? If so I am going to have more onions then I know what to due with... I sense major amounts of salsa coming up
gary
Location: Washington, Puget Sound Corridor
Posted: Jun-29-2005 at 6:23pm
I would not wash them. Planting them in May may have been THE problem. March is more in the time I remember. I think I remember chasing down some 'sets' for a friend then who has planted them every year. I'll ask him tommorow.
It may be that your sets simply said that "cut my time in the ground and I will not get BIG. I need to make seeds!"
Gary
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
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