Onion - a plant with a spicy taste: description, types, spring planting in the open field and care for it (Photo & Video) + Reviews

Onion - a plant with a special taste

Onion is a perennial or biennial plant belonging to the Amaryllis family. In total, there are several hundred species in the genus Onion. The bow is most widespread in the Northern Hemisphere. Onions have been domesticated for a relatively long time: evidence of their use by mankind dates back to the times of Ancient Egypt. Moreover, the use of the plant was not only culinary. Until now, certain types of bows are used by designers to decoration of flower beds and flower beds. Onion care is quite simple, one might say trivial, but there are several ways of planting: each of them is suitable for its specific purpose - obtaining seeds or bulbs.

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Introduction

The scientific name of the onion Alluim comes from the Celtic "all" - burning. Its specific sharp taste is due to the presence of special essential oils. In addition, onions contain about a dozen useful substances from sugars and organic acids to various enzymes and mineral compounds. It is safe to say that by consuming onions, the body can be provided with most of the components it needs, obtained from plants. In addition, onion stimulates the secretion of digestive juices, it has bactericidal and anthelmintic properties.

Onion is ideal as a country crop - it can be grown on plots of any area. Using the relatively small size of the landing sites, you can provide yourself with a supply of onions for a fairly long period. Onion yields with private cultivation on an individual plot can be up to 300 kg per hundred square meters. To obtain such indicators, you need to know the rules for growing a plant.

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Growing conditions

Onion is a cold hardy crop. The optimum temperature for its cultivation is + 12-16 ° C. At the same time, seed germination occurs already at temperatures of the order of +4-5°C. Adult bulbs are relatively well able to tolerate frosts down to -6 ° C. It is believed that sharp varieties have greater frost resistance, and varieties with a sweet taste are not able to tolerate frosts below -3 ° C.

Onion in the garden

In the first half of onion cultivation, the plant needs regular and intensive watering, while in the second half of cultivation it is recommended to keep the soil drier, creating “artificial drought” conditions for the plant. Onions need more sunlight than any other vegetable in the area. In addition, soil fertility must be high, and its acidity level must correspond to neutral or slightly alkaline (pH 6.4-7.9).

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Place of cultivation

For onions, the first site that comes across is not suitable. The main factors determining the place where onions are grown are soil fertility and the number of weeds on them. It is desirable that the site on which the onion will be grown is located higher on the site, so that winter snow and all excess moisture come off it first of all.

For onions, the ideal soil is fertile and loose earth with neutral acidity. Acidic and too heavy soils for onions are unacceptable - the yield in such cases drops by 3-4 times.

Place for onions: a sunny area without large trees and bushes

The soil must be "prepared" for planting onions - it must contain the required amount of nutrients. To ensure this state of the soil will help the previously planted green manure or the correct onion predecessors. It is believed that good predecessors of onions are cucumbers or potato, in the cultivation of which heavy organic fertilizers (manure, compost) were used. Any legumes or oats cut before flowering are recommended as green manure.

It is also important that the site has as few weeds as possible. Of course, during the initial treatment of the site, they will be removed, but everyone is well aware of the survival rate of weeds. Therefore, the fewer of them initially, the better.

When growing onions, it should be remembered that this crop (unlike the recommended predecessors) reacts very negatively to manure. It is believed that onions grown under manure often fall ill and do not have time to ripen. In addition, manure itself can contain a huge amount of weeds that are detrimental to onions.

In this regard, the ideal fertilizer, which is recommended to be applied to the site before sowing onions with any method of cultivation, will be humus. The application rate of humus for growing onions is 3-4 kg per 1 sq. m. This organic fertilizer will not be able to provide a complete set of top dressings necessary for onions for normal development and fruiting.

Superphosphate double as top dressing

Therefore, the following substances must also be added to the site as onion dressings:

Soil preparation for onions should begin immediately after the predecessor plant has been harvested or 1-2 months after the green manure plant has been mowed, crushed and dug up with soil.

Preparation begins with a shallow loosening of the soil to a depth of about 6-10 cm. This will help get rid of the bulk of the weeds. After loosening is completed, it is necessary to carefully inspect the site and remove the remnants of weeds (stems, roots, leaves, flowers and seeds). After that, it is advisable to harrow the area, for example, with a rake, and inspect it again for the presence of weed residues.

After that (usually after 2 weeks), mineral fertilizers are applied and the site is dug up to a depth of about 15-20 cm. It is recommended that this procedure should not take place later than the third decade of September, therefore, the timing of the harvesting of predecessors or the completion of all green manure operations should take into account this time limit.

Soil cultivation begins with the introduction of humus

On this, the preparation of the site in the autumn period for onions can be considered completed. Onion planting is carried out very early, therefore, as soon as snow begins to disappear from the site, it is necessary to start cultivating the land by introducing humus into it. There is also an alternative version of top dressing: in the fall, not all mineral fertilizers are applied, but only some of them - for example, superphosphate. The remaining components are brought under the plant along with humus in the spring.

After the humus is evenly distributed over the site, they begin to form the beds. The recommended width of the beds should be about a meter, and the distance between them should be about 40 cm.

On the hills, the height of the beds is recommended to be from 10 to 15 cm, in the lowlands it should be somewhat higher - from 20 to 25 cm. Mineral fertilizers are applied after the formation of the beds and they are evenly distributed over their area. After all the procedures are done, you can start planting onions.

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Landing

Planting onions in prepared soil

There are three main ways to plant onions:

• cultivation by sowing seeds
• seedling cultivation
• cultivation from sevka

Let's consider each of the methods in more detail. The first two of them have a one-year cycle, the second - a two-year one.

Growing onions with seeds can be realized only in the case of a warm and sufficiently long summer. Moreover, only “sweet” varieties of onions can be obtained in this way. Seeds must necessarily go through the process of stratification, after which the hatching procedure takes place.

Stratification is carried out in a refrigeration unit and is carried out for a month with a seed storage temperature of about 0°C. Then they are placed on wet gauze, where they swell.

The hatched onion seeds are sown directly on the beds and covered with a film, providing them with greenhouse conditions. As soon as 75% of seedlings appear, it is necessary to remove the film, and thin out the seedlings at a distance of 2-3 cm, leaving only the strongest ones. The remaining seedlings must be mulched with humus. After three weeks, thinning of the plant should be carried out, however, at the same time, the distances between plants are chosen on the order of 6-8 cm.

seedling method it is used only when it is necessary to grow peninsular and sweet varieties. Their seeds also go through the process of stratification, however, they are planted in boxes with soil for a period of about two months. In these boxes, no planting or thinning operations are performed on the plants. Despite the fact that the seeds are sown quite densely (the distance between them is about 1 cm, between the rows is 5 cm), onion seedlings are grown without any problems.

The only recommendation for gardeners to grow onions in this way is the following: shorten the leaves and roots of the plant by about 1/3 just before planting in the ground.

Growing by sowing seeds

This method can be justified in our climate if you start growing onions already in early April or sow them before winter. Seeds are recommended during the time between stratification and pecking to carefully examine and weed out the smallest, diseased and light ones.

In some cases, seed spitting can take more than three weeks. To avoid such a fate (and it is most typical for seeds with a thick shell), it is recommended that such seeds be treated with methylene blue before planting (concentration 0.3 g per 1 liter, temperature 20-25 ° C).

onion seeds

Sometimes the opposite happens as well. Seeds are ready for sowing, but the site, due to weather conditions and other circumstances, is not ready for planting. In this case, the seeds simply need to be placed in a cold place with a temperature in the range of -1°-0°C.

On the beds of the selected width, you can arrange up to 5 furrows intended for planting onions. At the same time, there will be about 20 cm between them. Each furrow must be compacted in the region of its bottom using, for example, a wooden stick. After compaction, seeds are planted: the recommended consumption is up to 1 g of seeds per 2 meters of beds.

The seeding depth should not exceed 3 cm in medium soils. Harder or softer soils require some adjustment in planting depth. At the end of planting, the beds are also mulched with humus.

In the case of using late winter sowing, beds are made immediately after digging up the site with the removal of the old crop. Soil cultivation and top dressing are carried out in the usual way, but the planting of the material is somewhat different. The main difference is that it is carried out after the onset of cold weather. Sowing of seeds is carried out after a significant drop in temperature has occurred, but it has not become negative. Or sowing is carried out so late that the seeds are guaranteed to fall under the influence of low temperatures. A similar procedure is necessary to induce the process of natural seed stratification in onions by low temperatures, bypassing the refrigerator.

In addition, under such conditions for growing seeds, the moisture content in the soil will no longer be enough for them to hatch and they will not germinate. In the spring, when the snow melts, the required amount of moisture will appear in the soil and the seeds will begin to swell and hatch. Consequently, seed germination will occur already at a temperature of the order of +3-4°C; this will ensure the earliest germination of the onion.

Growing by seedling method

The main advantage of this method is a higher yield compared to conventional seed. However, with its help it is possible to grow not all varieties, but only few varieties, that is, with a small number of feathers: Annual Siberian, Kaba, Annual Gribovsky, Danilovsky, etc.

onion seedlings

At growing seedlings either small greenhouses or boxes filled with soil are used. Planting onions for seedlings is usually done in the second decade of March. In this case, planting in several rows with a distance of about 5 cm between rows is used. Seeds are laid on lightly compacted soil, after which they are covered with a layer of soil 1 cm thick. Watering the seeds after planting should not be done, it is better to water the next day. All further watering of seedlings is carried out daily using a spray bottle. The procedures for seed stratification and germination are similar to those previously described.

If home growing seedlings is used, the boxes with it should be covered with plastic wrap or glass. Both at home and in a greenhouse, until seedlings appear, it is necessary to maintain the temperature of the seedlings in the region of + 20 ° C.

Shoots should appear in about a week. After the emergence of seedlings, the film is removed, and the box is placed on the sunny side. It is recommended that the temperature for seedlings be between +11°C and +20°C. And 2-3 weeks before planting seedlings in open ground, the temperature should be reduced so that it equals the temperature of the soil.

Seedlings are fertilized twice: 3 and 5 weeks after germination.

The composition of dressings is as follows:

Fertilizers should be diluted in water and applied at the same time as watering. Drops of fertilizer that have fallen on the leaves should be washed off with plain water to avoid burns to the seedlings.

When the seedlings have 3-4 leaves, they can be transplanted into open ground. This usually happens in the second decade of May. 3-4 days before planting, it is recommended to cut the seedling leaves to 1/3 of their length to simplify adaptation after transplantation.

Seedlings are planted on garden bed rows. In one row, the plants are located 5-6 cm apart, the distance between the rows is 20 cm.

Growing from sevka

This method, which uses two years of onion cultivation, is the best way to achieve high yields with large bulbs. It is best suited for peninsular and spicy onion varieties, such as Arzamas, Vishensky, Strigunovsky, etc.

Sets of various varieties of onion

The goal of the first year of cultivation is to obtain a small beam, no more than 3 cm in diameter, which is called a set. As with conventional cultivation, you will need fertile land without significant weeds. Sowing for sowing is done at the end of April. All seed preparation procedures are similar to those previously discussed.

The soil must be well moistened before sowing. And the landing itself should be carried out with increased density. For sowing, a distance between rows of the order of 10 cm is taken. These seeds should not be planted at a depth of more than 2 cm, so that germination is faster and more simultaneous.

Seed care is similar to onion care for annual cultivation. The approximate maturation time of the sevka is about three months, and its collection is carried out in August. From one square meter of crops, 1-1.5 kg of seedlings are collected.

The bulb is pulled out of the soil and dried right on it for a week. In case of rainy weather, it should be brought under a canopy. Drying should be uniform, so the sets are periodically turned over.

The subsequent drying of the sevka lasts about two weeks and is done indoors. At the same time, it matures. Feathers are removed from the onion, and diseased and damaged bulbs are also discarded at this stage.

Before storage, the seeds are dried at an elevated temperature (keep it at a temperature of + 35-40 ° C for about 8 hours) and sorted by size. At the same time, the largest (more than 4 cm in diameter) bulbs are used the next year to obtain green feathers.

Sevok is stored hanging in bags or baskets. The storage temperature of small seedlings (with a diameter of 0.5 to 1.5 cm) in winter should be + 1-2 ° С. A larger set (1.5-3 cm in diameter) is stored at a temperature of at least +15°C.

Cultivation in the second year should be carried out in well-fertilized soil, which must be fed and limed in advance. As top dressing, you should take compost (about 4-5 kg ​​per 1 sq. M), as well as a complex of mineral fertilizers described earlier (nitrate, potassium, superphosphate). For liming, wood ash with an application rate of 200 g per square meter is best suited. m.

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Care

From the very beginning of planting, onions need care. For onions, two main points are critical: preventing the formation of a crust on the topsoil and regular and effective removal of weeds. Loosening before germination is carried out with a rake. After the seeds sprout, any convenient narrow tool is used for this, making it possible to work between the rows.

Watering onions

Loosening must be carried out to a depth of at least 5 cm. The frequency of loosening is from 1 week to 10 days. It is best to do this procedure after watering or rain. In no case should you heavily cover the onion with earth or somehow “spud” it, because at the same time it stops growing.

Weeds are best removed in advance, until they have branched roots.. Visually, such weeds have a reddish color and they are easily removed even with normal loosening.

It is advisable to fertilize onions twice a season. First dressing is carried out in May and consists of the application of nitrogen fertilizers in any form. It can be both mineral fertilizers in the form of urea or nitrate, and organic. The application rates of mineral fertilizers for such dressings are 10-15 g per 1 sq. m. As an organic fertilizer, slurry mixed with water at a concentration of 1 to 10 to 1 to 6 is ideal.

Second top dressing carried out in June. At this stage, ammonium nitrate and potassium salt are added under the onion.

Storing onions at home

During a drought, most often occurring between mid-May and early July, onions should be watered regularly to stimulate their growth. In addition, in July, another thinning is carried out near the onion and, in fact, its harvesting begins. First, every second bulb is removed, after which the crops are harvested from the first and last rows in the garden.

In the end July irrigation stops. In August, the feathers will begin to dry out on the onion, and it will be possible to safely get it from the beds. Fallen feathers are a sign that the onion is ready for harvest.

Harvested onions require drying in the open air. About a week after harvesting, the feather finally dries out and is removed from the bulb. Further drying is carried out in two stages:

• within a week at a temperature of +20-25°C in a well-ventilated area
• another week in a special room with a temperature of + 30-35 ° C

Usually, when drying, the bulbs are hung up. In the future, the storage of onions is also carried out in limbo.

It should be noted that the shelf life of bulbs with a large neck (more than 1 cm in diameter) is 1-2 months, so after harvesting they should be used almost immediately.

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Kinds

Onion

Leek

chives

Fragrant onion

Slime Bow

shallot

Onion is one of the indispensable components of almost any cuisine temperate climate. This plant has many useful, sometimes even irreplaceable properties.

Onions are able to exist in almost any conditions and there are very few basic requirements for its cultivation. But, despite all the unpretentiousness of onions, its cultivation requires constant attention. Skipping even one loosening can have disastrous consequences for the crop of this crop.

The subtleties of planting onion sets

Onion - a plant with a spicy taste: description, types, spring planting in the open field and care for it (Photo & Video) + Reviews