by Noel | Mar 26, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I’m usually pretty good with my seed starting. I’ve got a light and heat setup that I’ve been modifying over the years and I almost always get good starts from my seeds, especially onions. This year I messed up. I had two flats of yellow onions under a grow light and over a heat mat, and I didn’t pay attention for one day. That proved costly. The onions were just starting to sprout, and they got too dry and too hot. I killed off most of them. I wasn’t sure...
by Noel | May 26, 2016 | CobraHead, Gardening
This small bed has 90 Candy hybrid onion starts that I planted today. I took advantage of a morning rain that dampened the soil. Planting in wet soil made the transplanting shock minimal. This is the first time I’ve planted Candy. They are supposed to be big and sweet. I planted on 6 inch spacing to give them plenty of growing room. After I got them into the ground I gave them a good soak. They are looking happy, so far. This large bed has 152 Copra...
by Noel | Mar 21, 2016 | CobraHead, Gardening
I finally got my onion seeds into flats, yesterday. I had purposely held off planting because Judy and I were on the road for nearly two weeks. I didn’t want to enlist anyone to look after my newly sprouted seedlings. I normally target late January or early February to plant onion seeds, but I’m pretty sure my late March start will work out fine. The flats from bottom to top contain: Copra yellow onion – 500 seeds; Red Wing red onion – 500 seeds; Candy –...
by Noel | Aug 14, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Here are about 300 onions we harvested from one of our 5 feet wide by 20 feet long open raised beds. The red onions are Red Bull, which performed extremely well. The yellow onions are Copra, a reliable storage onion that we’ve grown for many years. Both are hybrids. Grown on 5 inch centers and spaced in a block across the bed, these onions would have required a single row 125 feet long, which is one reason we really like growing in a bed versus rows...
by Noel | Feb 17, 2015 | CobraHead, Gardening
Here are three flats of onions I planted on February 8th, 9 days ago. Most of the nearly 1,600 seeds are sprouting nicely in flats in the basement. The flats are on a heat mat and lit with various LED grow lights we have accumulated over the last few years. The onions are growing in a commercial potting soil. I used to make my own potting soils, but I’ve found the commercial mixes to be much more reliable in giving me good strong root growth, and they are...
