I wrote last year, as part of Urban Hennery's Dark Days Challenge, that I ran out of cellared onions too ealy in the winter for my liking -- something like November. That left me to buy organic from the store, which is still good, but since onions are a prime storage crop, I knew I could do better.
Apparently, I ordered the onion sampler pack from Burpee in January, because I was surprised to return from vacation to find a box of three different kinds of onion starts -- white, yellow, and red -- waiting on my porch in the same box as my seed potatoes. As of today, the onions have been in the ground for a week, and both the white and the red are sending their little sprouts sky-ward. Come on, yellow -- you're my favorites!
If you haven't started onions this year, there is still time for many of the growing zones to do so. I have been increasingly expanding my growing of storage root crops because they are so easy to grow and easy to store, giving me even more of a break on that winter grocery budget.
The Analysis
Fast: Although it has taken some time to broadfork and then garden claw the soil, planting the onions takes very little time. I'll mulch them, and then they'll probably just sit there until they're ready for harvest. Easy.
Cheap: I paid $12.95 for 300 onion sets, which, if these all produce, should pretty much blow the price of store-bought onions out of the water.
Good: I am so excited to eat my own onions. I just have to keep my hands out of the soil, checking on their progress!
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