Planting Onions

I went to Renfrow Hardware in Matthews this past weekend with the goal of finding a Christmas present for my parents ... in particular, a 5 gal automatic chicken feeder for their 25 new Rhode Island Red hens. I found one. I bought it.

I also found onions. Last year I planted quite a few varieties in the spring and envisioned a bounty of plump, pungent bulbs, but what I ended up with were golf ball sized disappointments. I spoke with one of the gentlemen at Renfrow and he told me to plant in the fall for large onions and to plant them high in a mound and to let the winter rain wash the dirt away from the developing bulbs. He also suggested manually clearing dirt off of the bulbs in early spring, keeping them only half buried.

I raked up six 'speed bumps' and planted 8 yellow Granex hybrids per row for a total of 48. I didn't apply mulch under/over the plants as I did with the garlic, but I did fill the trenches between the rows with mower-shredded leaf mulch. If I don't watch out all of my space is going to be occupied by alliums. I should be able to harvest in May however, which would free up the space for other pursuits.