Planting Onions in your own backyard

There are a variety of types and tips when planting onions that you can apply when choosing which plants to compose of your garden. Onions are a cold-season fall or spring crop, easy to grow because of their hardiness. Whether you start your onions from seed, sets, or seedlings, there are some tricks of the trade that make the difference between a great crop and a disappointing one.

Onions can be planted in both the spring and fall. Generally speaking, plant onion sets outdoors when the weather is cool but not cold. Typically, they are planted early in the spring and harvested in the fall after their tops begin to die back.

The key advantage an onion set has over an onion seed comes from the fact that when you plant an onion set, it is at a far more advanced stage of growth compared to an onion seed. They, therefore, spring into active growth much more reliably and quicker. Onion sets can be planted when temperatures are around 10° (50°F) in a location that gets at least 6 to 7 hours of sun per day. Plant 2” in the ground & about 4” apart, giving your onions room to grow.

Here’s a list of varying types to help when planting onions. Let us know how our gardening experts can help you this season!

Yellow Dutch onion sets

Yellow Dutch Onions are the most popular of all the cooking onions. This onion is easy to grow, has excellent storage capability and produces large, crisp, great tasting onions. They should be harvested when the tops change color and start turning yellow. Start pulling plants & let them dry on top of the soil for a few days. They can also be harvested early and then used as a green onion.

Red onion sets

Red onions are packed with quercetin which is a bioflavonoid that is particularly well suited for scavenging free radicals. They also have other wide ranging health benefits. These onions tend to be medium to large in size, have a sharp flavor & eye-watering qualities. They are often consumed raw (for color and bite), grilled, or lightly cooked with other foods. A favourite onion used in the culinary arts!

White onion sets

White onions are used all over the world. They are a rounded shape and medium to large in size. Covered in a thin, papery like skin with a firm, white - almost translucent, flesh. White onions are crunchy and tender with a pungent, mildly sweet flavor and have a mellow, non-abrasive aftertaste. They have a slightly milder flavor than the yellow onion. Perfectly suited for both raw and cooked applications.

Yellow Spanish onion sets

A Spanish onion - often called the Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion - is a type of onion that is typically about the size of a softball, has a fine grain, and a yellow or white skin. It's known for its very mild flavor, with many people finding it sweet enough to eat raw. A favourite with gardeners as it produces large fruit up to 16 oz. and they grow quickly without much effort. A popular & very versatile variety!

Multiplier onion set

A multiplier onion is one variation of the more common green onions (or spring onion, or shallot), that produces more than one bulb per plant. Sow these first-year onion sets in the spring & enjoy cut-and-come-again green onions all summer long. By the fall, each set that you planted will have produced lots of offsets that are the perfect size for pickling onions. Excellent for cooking.

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