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If you are on our mailing list you will see that we again are offering bare root onions as part of our spring orders. Although we don't plan on having a class on raising onions as part of our spring class series, I will have information when you pick up your plants. We have Spanish yellow, Candy, and Copra in bunches of 60 to 75 plants.

Spanish yellow is a favorite onion grown by commercial growers in northern states because it has a sweet taste and large uniform bulb. It will store for four to five months if kept cool and dry, and matures in about 100 days.

Our most popular plant last year was the Candy onion. It is also the favorite of those selling onions due to its size and sweetness. (Proof of its possible size was a picture in the local paper of me holding a two pound onion.) It is a globe-shaped yellow bulb that matures in about 100 days. The one draw back to the Candy is that it will only store, on average three months.

Copra is the longest storing onion available anywhere. It will store from 12 months if kept cool and dry and actually gets sweeter the longer it is stored. The Copra is an extra hard, medium-sized bulb, that is yellow and globe-shaped and will mature in about 100 days.

Onions are members of the Allium family and are cousins of garlic, chives, leeks, and shallots. They are mostly biennial as they grow vegetative the first year, then bloom the second year. Onions can be started by sets, direct seeding and transplanting.

Direct seeding means you plant the seeds directly in the ground. An example of this would be scallions which are also called green onions or bunching onions. They are used when they are undersized and generally are eaten raw.

Since onions can be eaten at any stage the immature bulb-forming onions can be thinned from the garden and eaten. In the supermarket, scallions often come trimmed and bundled, a dozen or so in the bunch, bound by rubber bands.

Direct seeding for transplanting should be done in late February or early March. If you want to grow large firm onions for use next fall and winter, sow the seeds in pots or containers. Once they sprout, keep onion seedlings in a sunny, south-facing window, or better yet, a few inches below a fluorescent light. Transplant the little, grass-like seedlings outdoors as soon as the garden soil is dry enough to work thoroughly. If the soil is fertile and well drained with plenty of sunlight and watered on a regular basis, you should have nice onions come fall.

I have tried seeding and transplanting onions and I don't know if it's my arthritic hands or my lack of patience, but it was a disaster for me. So, this is where I begin, by planting onions bare root by sets.

Spring must be around the corner because the Chisago County Master Gardeners are getting very busy. Our spring series began with Jim Birkholz and an apple pruning class February 24, at the North Branch Senior Center. The Lindstrom Home and Garden Show is Saturday and Sunday, February 28 and March 1 and of course, our Bonanza will be March 14 in North Branch.

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