Why Not Trim Onions Before Planting + Growing Onions from Seed Tips and Tricks

[@StargazingDragon]

I have a whole tray coming up right now and I was just contemplating cutting them. Perfect timing

[@howmygardengrows3080]

Timely! Currently waiting for my onion seed to pop up! Also, I'm in that strip in the middle where I can get away with long or intermediate day. I enjoy that. Lol

[@marysanders3860]

My spousal equivalent had a family member big into chicken farming for Perdue. He had access to their back 40 where they had stored some of their earliest litter cleaned out of the barn, back before they had to manage it more responsibly. It had decomposed in the most amazing compost. Yes, yes, I know chemicals- homones-all the nasty of industrial chicken farming, I know already and honestly know more than i wish i did. But that stuff was amazing for starting seeds.

[@annekec4666]

Love the commentary on onions. My Utah-Yellow and Walla^2 and leeks and my beloved 💚Ishikura 💚Winter💚Bunching💚Onions💚 agree with you. When I was a super-micro farmer, all of my growing containers were no-till systems that had a new layer over top and then planted into that, and it worked great for years. When I scaled up to small homestead, I tried to scale up the seed starting mix from wood and hay and manure compost with legume cover crop before planting, but I had problems: The moisture level in the seed starting area was high enough that the cover crop material molded, and I had to sift my compost so much it wasn't worth the effort of adding material I would then have to sift out. Then the isopods and millipedes went on a rampage and chomped all my seedlings; enter the catfood-tin beer traps for the bugs. Too much work, not worth it on my farm.

[@RanchoelPalomar]

As a Spanish follower I like you include the Caro Luna song was nice, I like all your videos very informative and interesting thanks for sharing all those tips God bless you.

[@KokoraLife]

Thanks for this -- such specific tips for onion growing! Appreciated!

[@JohnJude-dp6ed]

6a Mid Ohio like you we been cold and temperature up in the 30s coming. Always love your help . Planning to start onions this week. I don't trim onions I believe it slows down the growth. BIG THANKS

[@gregholl5011]

Temp in the 30s is warm here! 😊 I wouldn't want a Florida farm. It would probably too warm anytime of a year.

[@candiwallace6605]

Morning cheers to great information 💯

[@robertsonfamilyfarm9126]

I’m in Northern California, just ordered the Neversink gridder with dibble attachments, It’s currently on sale , hopefully 🙏 it works out , I like to wait till onions are almost 12 inches tall and , then drive over with manure spreader with aged compost and add about 2” around them ! Are best onion, the Italian torpedo ! Kudos

[@brokenmeats5928]

I love ALL No-Till Growers videos!

[@nancyseery2213]

Winter is for sleep and rest, 'cuse you ain't getting any later into the year. Yep, I picked white Candy also here in TN. Just cleaned out the one sprouting. God bless y'all and keep growing.

[@humanbeing4368]

Thanks for the introduction to Caro Luna!

[@jamessorensen7277]

Thank you

[@RebeccaWhite30]

Thank you! I’ll try to stop trimming my onions this year 😊

[@williambrown9341]

I've sown my flattened compost pile with rye and field bean. With quantity of seeds for half an acre, spread over 20-30m2 of 10" high compost (9 month old, basically horse manure). Seeds, originally meant to be used as cover crop, were pre-germinated, but field area wasn't ready. So, I intented to refresh the compost, benefits of roots exudates (are they really here, at an early stage, in a rich substrate..?), and benefits of greens and roots terminated, for short-time composting. I plan to use part of it as a starting mix, for pot transplanting, in addition with a commercial peat blend, little of my soil (carbonate calcium also, to raise up the pH and be more in the range of my field soil), earthworm castings maybe, vermiculite. And also, the compost was inoculated at the maturation (after heating phases) with a commercial powder of EMO (which was multiplied on oat flakes, coffee grounds, brown sugar). Ashes... Is there anyone using ashes to prevent pythium, or other disease ? Works it well ?

[@lmullens75]

I have done the onion haircut thing because I think I saw somebody here on KZbin doing it. I do think it helped with getting them separated when it was time to plant out, and I was growing them under grow lights, so they were a bit leggy the first time. Maybe it’s for grow light folks instead of cold frame folks?

[@Graham-pq4vh]

Thanks for the explanation of cover crop ✌️

[@fourdayhomestead2839]

Great topic!! You're worth your weight in gold! 😊 Ps. "Candy" onion is my favorite multi use onion variety. Looking for a nice purple variety in that same line.

[@jvin248]

Onions have been super hard for me to grow. I keep trying though, one of these methods gotta work eventually. I planted Egyptian Walking Onion sets last fall so I'll see how they do. Getting ready to drag out the trays and soil blocks for all the garden plant starts soon...

[@dougtheslug6435]

Small time grower here, I just grow food for myself and my grow room can support 1000 plants max so I need 5 or 6 large bags. I prefer store bought starter soil for my plants only because I used my own for years from my outdoor compost bin and the one thing I hated about that was the bugs. You got to bring it in before it freezes outside and then it sits for months and when it's time to use it, there seems to be even more hanging out in the grow room.......they're multiplying I think.

[@if432]

Soak soil with boiling water

[@dougtheslug6435]

@@if432 Well that may work for a small amount of compost put I'm using pretty much a wheel barrel full of it.

[@Mark_Nadams]

For your patreon question - I agree with all you said but one part I would worry about is concerning pathogens. Using the final product as a seed starting mix means you need to worry about damping off and other seedling susceptibility issues. A way around that might be a controlled hot compost method but I would have to test that before I would recommend that.

[@RebeccaWhite30]

Signed up for patreon! Considered the level where I get your cell but I feel like that would turn into a crutch this spring 😂

[@AGRICULTUREFARM-i1o]

Hello my lovely people. Thank you

[@cuttwice3905]

Patreon Question: Doing hugelkultur piles with wood chips instead of logs might be a worthwhile experiment.

[@jupitersgarden5097]

Thanks for the onion details! I have a tray each of cipollinis and shallots going right now. BUT the big (life-advice) takeaway of this vid: ALWAYS ask, “Wait, is that accurate??”

[@RalphMiller-g8o]

I plant around 2000 sweet onions in Nov in raise beds in Zone 8 i never cut my tops been growing them for years.

[@cjgrumbles1814]

Do you grow your shallots identically to onions? Same start date, etc .?

[@doowroh]

Re: Trimming onion tops. I have usually done this as a matter of plant management. Long, wispy greens that sometimes tend to flop over and often get tangled make transplanting a pain and very slow for me.

[@ZaraThustra-w2n]

Yep. That's the same reason the big farms do it. I just planted a few trays out yesterday - I trimmed the tops. Not for improved yield but just so it would take less time.

[@imdaddio]

Hi @FarmerJesse. Sorry to be a bit off-topic with this question but I'm trying to get my own no-till method figured out. Might a soil aerator or lawn plug remover that is pulled behind a lawn tractor be a suitable substitute for a broadfork ?

[@Blynn-md4dx]

I know this isn't about starting onions, but what about DURING the growing season? Do you pull the soil back from the bulbs? I have seen the frequently and is so time intensive. THANK YOU for all the information you pass on!

[@AJWGBFX]

I watched another vid in which a guy did a comparative experiment in which 20 onions were ‘spooned’ (soil pulled back 3 times in the season) and another 20 left alone. All other conditions were the same. Spooned onions were 200g (7 oz) on average, 20g (1 oz) on average bigger than non-spooned. A small sample, but seems too much of my valuable time.

[@Blynn-md4dx]

Thanks for answering!

[@keithsoucy2058]

Go Brighton!

[@leslievasquez136]

If you don’t have a greenhouse would you start the seeds and wait until March to take them out? Or try to take outdoors as soon as they germinate? Thanks

[@davidmarshall2297]

Last year I trimmed the tops, got mostly small onions, but could have been other reasons. Just started seeds this week, Zone 6A, NY, curious-is it better to multiple trim from 10" down to 8", or trim further and let them grow back to 8"?

[@7dwarfes103]

Hi there Jesse. Alberta zone 3 here saying a big hello! Just wondering if your heritage is Dutch?

[@zepguwlthistle7924]

what zone are you in? I'm zone 5b. So when should i start my seeds?

[@danphillips4590]

How cold can onion starts get in jan feb and be ok?

[@jupitersgarden5097]

Oh hey also…. My entire bed of gorgeous baby onions last year were decimated by a new-to-central-PA pest: the horrid allium leaf miner. Very bad pest!! This year I will: plant earlier, plant in a totally new location, and cover them with remay until danger has passed.

[@RichM-ij8vr]

You wouldn't love your Florida farm in July and August!

[@emkn1479]

Realized after several years that all alliums get nasty little maggots and red-brown cased larvae. I’m not growing any for a couple of years, but am wondering if my ornamental alliums will also harbor the pests…hope not. Considering using beneficial nematodes as well.

[@MayhemLucinate]

Am I cooked if I have listened to every episode of this pod on both KZbin and Spotify

[@utubemouse]

😂

[@Jbomb312]

This is the nerdiest dirtiest podcast around, and I am here for it!

[@79PoisonBreaker]

In reaction to video title. do not stress plants by pruning when you are going to stress them by replanting them already unless you like plants in shock taking weeks to recover and restart growing.

[@dorcasrodriguez2901]

❤❤❤

[@farmingowl1]

I never get anything from onion sets

[@ThinkLittleFarm]

BEAT IPSWITCH!

[@SoGaFarmstead]

Vi day ya=Vidalia

[@lksf9820]

This video shows how isolated America is from the rest of the World. It's only there they have these SD and LD onions, that they were misinformed about cutting the tops off and they constantly get soil mixed up with other growing mediums. Yet don't realise the rest of us have little idea what they're talking about and that there is a whole World out there beyond their shores 😄

[@darrinmcgann]

Don't take the coins !