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 how bad things were until a few days later when it became obvious that new sprouting was pretty much over and I had lost a lot of the seeds.

Green Onions
Green Onions

I hadn’t started my red onions because the seeds were on backorder and did not arrive until almost two weeks after I had the yellow onions started.  I started the reds right away and they are doing just fine.

I didn’t want to start more yellows because it was already getting too late to start more. Some will make it, and with the high volume of red starts I have, I should be okay for quantity.  Unfortunately the yellow onions are better keepers, but this will be a lean year for their storage.

There’s always a lesson in mistakes, and with seed starting, diligence is paramount.

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