Onion Plants
Allium cepa Onion plants are drop-shipped by Priority Mail directly from our Texas supplier, so shipments can arrive from January through April according to your planting zone (see chart). You may also request a shipping week when placing your order.
Onions are dug as live plants from the field; shipping schedule may change due to weather conditions or other variables. You will be notified via email when your order has shipped.
Onion plant ship dates
| area | timing |
|---|
| Zones 10, 9, 8 | starting in mid-January |
| Zone 7 | starting in mid-February |
| Zone 6 | starting in early March |
| Zone 5 | starting in early April |
| Zones 4, 3, 2 | starting in mid-April |
When Your Onion Plants Arrive
Remove plants from the box immediately! They may seem a little peaked from travel, but don’t fret! Plant them in the ground as soon as possible, watering well. If you can’t plant immediately, unbundle the plants and heel them into some moist potting medium in a seedling tray, or wrap the roots in damp paper towels and wrap loosely in plastic. After planting, keep onion plants well watered and well weeded, and you’ll be rewarded!
Planting instructions (for conventional growing) will arrive with your shipment. As always, a professional soil test should guide your fertilization program. Onions are particularly sensitive to deficiencies in calcium and sulfur, and require steady nitrogen availability through the season. Band a balanced slow-release fertilizer like soybean meal or NutriVeg into your planting row at 2 lbs per 100 row feet, or a couple teaspoons per transplant hole. Water seedlings in well with fish hydrolysate with kelp (diluted at 2 oz per gallon water). Repeat the fish/kelp fertigation or side-dress with a readily available N source like blood meal several times throughout the season.
Onions & Shallots
Allium cepa Onions are day-length sensitive—to produce large bulbs, plant in spring as soon as soil is workable. Most of our sets and plants are long-day varieties, suitable for northern growers. Shallow rooted, onion require rich weed-free soil and consistent water. All other factors being equal, onions grown from seedlings will grow bigger and resist disease better than set-grown onions.
Plant onions 3" apart in rows 1' apart and thin to 6" as they grow. (If you don’t want to thin, plant them 4–6" apart.) Mulch when they are 1' tall. During the season, pull any plants that begin to bolt and use them as scallions.
It’s a good idea to sidedress once or twice a season, especially close to summer solstice.
Clean and grade before storage. Eat thick-necked onions first because they won’t keep.
Ideal storage conditions are temperatures at 32° with humidity of 60–70%. If you can’t do that, work to get a total number of 100. For example, at temperatures from 50–55°, humidity should be 45–50%.
