How to grow onion sets from seeds. Onion sets from nigella - a stable harvest anywhere: how to sow and grow onions from seeds correctly

You will need

• - wood ash;
• - potassium permanganate;
• - manure humus or compost;
• - peat;
• - organic and mineral fertilizers;
• - copper sulfate;
• - watering can with a fine nozzle;

Instructions

Treat onion seeds. For better germination and protection from diseases, before sowing, wrap the seeds in a fabric bag and immerse them in hot water (45-50°C) for 10-15 minutes, and then in cold water for 1-2 minutes. Additionally, you can infuse 2 tablespoons in one liter of water. wood ash and immerse a bag of nigella in it for 10-12 hours. After this treatment, you can sow in 2-3 days. If you bought nigella at the market, disinfect it. To do this, prepare a pale solution of potassium permanganate and dip the seeds in it for 30 minutes.

Prepare a bed for sowing nigella. The bed should be located in an open sunny place. Sewing works well in areas where previously there were tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage. Add manure humus or compost (3-4 kg per 1 sq. m) and peat (2-3 kg) to the soil. Don't forget about mineral fertilizers, add per 1 sq. m 1 tbsp. nitrophoska and superphosphate and 3 tbsp. wood ash. Distribute the fertilizer evenly throughout the area allocated for the garden bed and dig the soil to a depth of 18-20 cm.

Form a low bed 1-1.2 m wide. Lightly compact it with a shovel. Pour a solution of copper sulfate (1 tablespoon per bucket of warm water) at the rate of 2 liters per 1 square meter. meter. Cover with plastic wrap for 1-2 days.

Sow the seeds (in central Russia this is usually done on April 20-25). For convenience, mark the bed: step back 10 cm from the edge and make 3 grooves along it at a distance of 5 cm from each other. The depth of the grooves is 2 cm. Then step back 12-15 cm and again draw 3 grooves along, etc. This arrangement is considered the most convenient for further care of the crops. Sow the seeds in the furrows and sprinkle with soil. Lightly compact the top layer of soil and water the bed at the rate of 2-3 liters of water per 1 square meter. meter.

Carry out further watering (before emergence) very carefully so as not to wash out the bed and wash the seeds from the furrows. Water with a watering can with the smallest nozzle once every three days. To ensure friendly and quick germination, you can cover the bed with film or covering material in 1 layer.

Reduce watering when seedlings emerge. If the weather is favorable in May-June, water the bed once a week, and in hot and dry weather 2-3 times a week at the rate of 6-8 liters per 1 sq. m. In July, reduce watering further, because During this period, the bulbs are already maturing. Water as the soil dries, preventing the feathers from withering. For watering, use a watering can with a nozzle in the form of a fine sieve, try not to break the feathers of the onion, they are very delicate in the set, but they are the ones that help the onion to form.

Many gardeners today prefer not to buy onion sets in the store, but to grow them from seeds themselves. This is explained by the fact that the choice of onion varieties in the form of sets is not as wide as the range of seeds. And you can’t be sure of the quality of purchased onion sets. In addition, grown in your own garden, it is already adapted to the soil, climate, etc.However, growing a good onion set is not an easy problem: it can begin to rot, overgrow, or, conversely, not grow to the desired size. In this article we will look at growing onion sets from seeds, when to plant and how to fertilize.

How to prepare a bed for sowing onion sets?

They begin to grow onion sets in the fall. A dry, sunny place without fruit trees or bushes nearby is suitable for the future garden bed. It is advisable that cucumbers, cabbage, radishes, potatoes, tomatoes (but not garlic or carrots) first grow on it. The bed needs to be dug up, adding humus to the ground (half a bucket per 1 sq. m), a glass of ash and a tablespoon of nitroammophosphate and superphosphate for each sq. m. m.

Alternatively, you can also add manure or peat manure compost to the soil.If you do not want to dig up the garden bed, then sow green manure on it - for example, mustard, which will nourish the soil and will not attract the onion fly. By spring, it is advisable to fertilize the bed with ash.

Onions love acidic soils, so apply liming. Apply mineral fertilizer to the dug soil in spring. A week before sowing, the area where the bed will be should be treated with a disinfectant solution: 3 teaspoons of copper sulfate per 10 liter of water.

A few days before sowing, loosen it to a depth of 5-12 centimeters and shape it. Compact the soil a little and water with warm water or a solution of EM preparations. After this, cover it with black film.

The key features of growing onions in the country are shown in the figure below.

How to prepare seeds for sowing operations?

Before starting sowing operations, the nigella - this is the name given to the small onion seeds from which the set is obtained - must be sorted out, removing diseased specimens or those that have begun to rot, and sorted by diameter. The larger the heads, the earlier they are planted. Then they will be used to form seeds and produce greens. Those that are smaller, as well as medium in size, will give the best harvest.

Onion sets have a short shelf life. For sowing, take only last year’s seeds, otherwise you may not wait for germination.

Seeds purchased at the store are ready for planting. Those that were grown independently must be disinfected. This can be done in the following ways:

1. Soak the seeds in warm water for 24 hours, changing it periodically.
2. Etch in a weak solution of potassium permanganate for 1-2 days, replacing the solution with fresh one 3-4 times.
3. Pickle the seeds for 45 minutes in a weak solution of potassium permanganate, then soak for 18 hours at room temperature in the Epin solution (2 drops per 100 ml of water).
4. Place the seeds in water at least 50°C, then in cold water for 2-3 minutes. Soak for 18 hours in a solution of “Epin” or “Zircon” (2 drops per 100 ml of water).
5. Warm the seeds in hot water for half an hour. Then soak in aloe juice for another half hour.

If you want seedlings to appear faster, the seeds can be pre-germinated. To do this, you need to keep the seeds between two damp cloths for two days (they must be damp all the time during this time). When the seeds sprout, dry them a little and dust them with chalk before sowing.

Onion sets can be prepared for planting in another, more effective way. Dry the seeds for a week at a temperature of +25°C. It is best to place it near heating devices, but not on them.

You can also treat onion sets with salt. This is another option for preparing onion sets for planting. The seeds should be immersed in a weak salt solution (2 tablespoons per two liters of water) for 2-3 hours. Thanks to this procedure, the development of the culture is accelerated, it protects the onion from all sorts of aggressive influences, and disinfects it from nematodes. Both rock salt and sea salt can be used with the same effect.

How to determine the timing of the sowing campaign?

Onions should be sown as early as possible. When the ground thaws 5-6 centimeters, you need to start planting. You can start planting when the soil warms up to a depth of 10 centimeters. In central Russia, this time begins around the twentieth of April. Focus on weather conditions. The main thing is that acceptable daytime temperatures remain for several days before planting.

Frosts that may return are not scary for onions: seedlings can withstand temperatures down to -3°C, bulbs - up to -4°C. It is worth focusing on weather conditions. During the day, the soil temperature should not fall below +11°C. If you delay planting, the onion will not have time to grow and develop.

Sevok tolerates frost well. It can sometimes be sown even for the winter, while regularly hilling the beds. To do this, the smallest specimens, which dry out during storage, need to be rooted two weeks before the cold weather.

Video “Details of planting onion sets”

Demonstrative video with visual examples, as well as details and recommendations for planting onion sets.

How to sow nigella correctly?

If you sow wet germinated seeds, you don’t have to water the bed first. If they are dry, then water the bed with hot water, then make furrows, water them again and after that they can be planted. It is important that the soil in the beds remains loose, otherwise there will be no harvest. The depth of the beds should be 4-5 centimeters. Maintain a distance of 20-40 centimeters between rows. This way the onions will ripen correctly and retain their presentation. Place the seeds in the soil and press them firmly with soil. Between the heads you need to maintain a distance of 7-10 centimeters, if they are small - 5 centimeters.

After planting, it is necessary to mulch the beds with sawdust and straw so that they retain heat and moisture. The thickness of the layer is 2 centimeters.

How can I plant onion sets?

There are two ways:

1. Sow in rows. Its essence is as follows. Using sharpUsing a hoe or rake, mark the indentations at a distance of 25 centimeters from each other. Sow seeds in them. It is best if the gap between them is 1.5 centimeters. If you can’t achieve this result, you can thin out the onions later. Sprinkle the sown seeds with humus or loose soil in a layer of 2-3 centimeters. The size of future bulbs depends on the depth of planting. If the seeds are covered in a thinner layer, the shoots will not grow well and the bulbs will overgrow. If the seeds are planted deeper, they will ripen longer, produce small onions or not produce them at all. After the seeds are planted, the soil should be lightly compacted with a shovel and watered from a small watering can, being careful not to wash out the rows. Then the bed is mulched with sawdust, humus and covered with film on the arches. This will speed up seed germination and retain moisture. Remove the film as soon as shoots appear.
2. Sowing with tape. In the garden bed you need to dig several strips 8-10 centimeters wide - that is, to form ribbons. Seeds are sown randomly on the leveled surface of the tape at a rate of 10 g/m2. m.

This method is good because during the formation of the bulb, the seeds that are nearby will be able to separate from each other, taking up free space in the garden bed. As a result, the seedlings will not need thinning.Further agricultural technology will be no different from the first method: plant the seeds, lightly compact the soil, then water and mulch. For both planting methods, it would be a good idea to first sprinkle the soil with sand, which retains the necessary warmth for the onions.

How to care for seedlings?

Planted onions are watered once a week: the liquid is 8 l/1 sq. m. You need to care for the planted seedlings in the same way as you did when caring for the seeds. The first shoots appear a week after planting. At the beginning of its life, onion sets, like regular onions, grow feathers. Therefore, if the weather is dry, it is watered 1-2 times a week.

Feeding is not necessary, but to improve growth, treatment with organic or mineral substances is possible once a month. The soil should never be dry during this procedure - this is done only after abundant watering. At the same time, liquid should not be allowed to stagnate so that the root system and bulbs do not rot.

If it rains while the bulbs are forming, the onions must be hidden. You can cover it with film, placing arcs, or build a roof over the bed from the same film. Despite the moisture-loving nature, onions do not tolerate excessive amounts of moisture, so, by the way, they should not be planted in areas with groundwater.Onions cannot be planted in the same place two years in a row, as they greatly deplete the soil.

Harvesting and storing onion sets

By the end of July or beginning of August, small onions begin to fall to the ground, their feathers turn yellow. So, it's time to harvest the harvest. The onion along with the tops is pulled out, after which it is left to dry under a canopy for 10-15 days. If the weather is sunny, the seedlings can be laid out right in the garden bed. When the feather, having dried completely, gives up all its nutrients to the bulb, it is cut off. Only a 3-centimeter tail is left.

Onion sets should be stored in a cardboard box, or a fabric bag, or in a cellar at a temperature from 0°C to +3°C. You can also store it in an apartment at a temperature of 17-18°C. If you do not maintain this temperature regime, the seed will deteriorate and go to waste. Onions up to 1 centimeter in diameter are best stored in the cellar to avoid drying out. It is preferable to store larger sets indoors so that they do not rot.

Popular onion varieties used as sets

Video “How onions are processed before planting”

An indicative video that will help everyone properly process onions before planting, which will improve their ripening and productivity.

Question answer

1. What and how to treat onion sets before planting to avoid arrows?

If you need to get a lot of greens, you need to cut off a little from the top and soak what is cut off for 2-3 hours in a weak urea solution (one less than a teaspoon per 5 liters of water). If you need to get large bulbs, there is no need to trim anything. Soak the onion sets in a weak solution of potassium permanganate for 2-3 hours. In this case, you cannot take the feather from the bow. You need to plant the sets shallowly, so that a quarter of the onion sticks out of the ground. When planting early, first plant the seedlings to a depth of 4-5 centimeters. When the feather comes out, rake the soil enough so that a quarter of the bulb protrudes from the ground. Onions from large onions and large sets go into the arrow. Small bulbs do not produce shoots because they lack a flower bud. The onion gives an arrow if it was stored incorrectly, or if it was frozen.

1. How can you tell by the condition of the onions that it is time to harvest?

When the onion is ripe, it no longer grows new green feathers, and those that remain gradually wither, turn yellow, and dry out. The onion neck changes - it becomes softer to the touch, thinner. Fully ripened onions acquire a color characteristic of its variety.

Why are many summer residents in no hurry to purchase onion sets in a retail chain, but try to grow them themselves? When buying onions in a store, there is no guarantee of its quality: where it was grown, what it was fed with and how it was cared for is unknown. And everything is quite the opposite with planting material grown with your own hands and in your own garden.

The process of growing onion sets is a troublesome task and requires a lot of patience. But for persistent gardeners, nothing is impossible. You just need to strictly follow all the recommendations for growing and caring and then there will be no problems.

The selection and preparation of a plot of land begins in the fall, when the harvest has already been harvested. Beds where cucumbers, cabbage or radishes were grown are well suited for onion sets. The site should be in a well-lit place.

It is necessary to add humus to the soil (when digging the beds), as well as several useful components. For one square meter you will need approximately half a bucket of humus, one hundred and fifty grams of ash, superphosphate and nitroammophosphate - one tablespoon each.

For organic farmers, it is recommended to sow the area chosen for onion sets with green manure plants, such as mustard. In the future, it will become a reliable protection for young plants from onion flies, and a source of nutrition for the soil. In this case, wood ash can be added in the spring.

At the end of March - beginning of April, a few days before planting onion seeds, the land must first be loosened well, then compacted a little, spilled with any solution containing effective microorganisms and covered with a dense opaque film.

Timing for sowing seeds for onion sets

In early spring, planting is carried out at the beginning of April, in cold spring weather - at the end of April. In general, it is better to plant seeds earlier. Neither the bulbs nor the seedlings are afraid of frosts down to minus four degrees.

Preparing seeds for sowing

Purchased seeds do not require any preparation, since they have already undergone appropriate processing. But your seeds will need some procedures to increase the percentage of germination and further development. You can use one of the options:

1. Onion seeds need to be soaked in warm water for a day, but change the water several times.

2. The seed material is soaked in a pink solution of potassium permanganate for 24 or 48 hours, but it is replaced with a new one at least three times.

3. You can leave the seeds in the potassium permanganate solution for only an hour, and for the next 18-20 hours keep them in a solution of 100 milliliters of water and two drops of Epin.

4. For 25 minutes, onion seeds are kept in water heated to 50 degrees, and then in cold water (about three minutes). After this, as in the previous version, the seeds are soaked in a solution with Epin.

5. First, you need to soak the seeds for thirty minutes in hot water (up to 50 degrees), and then the same amount in aloe juice.

To speed up the emergence of seedlings, the seeds can be germinated. To do this, they need to be spread between two pieces of damp cloth and kept in such conditions for forty-eight hours. Just before sowing, the germinated seeds need to be slightly dried and lightly sprinkled with chalk powder.

Germinated seeds can be sown in dry soil, but for ungerminated seeds the bed must be prepared. First, water the entire area with hot water, then the grooves directly prepared for the onions, and only after that the seeds can be planted.

Seeds can be sown in rows. The width of the rows is approximately 25-30 centimeters, the depth of the furrows is about two centimeters. It is good to leave a gap of one and a half centimeters between the seeds - this will save you from thinning out young crops in the future.

After planting, the grooves with the seeds are covered with a layer of humus (about two centimeters) or loose soil and slightly compacted. After this, watering and mulching are carried out. It would be ideal to cover the finished beds with transparent waterproof material on the arches. This will promote rapid growth of seedlings and maintain soil moisture. Remove the film immediately after the first shoots appear.

You can sow seeds in another way - with tape. To do this, it is necessary to make wide stripes, similar to ribbons, on the prepared land plot. The distance between them is approximately 20 centimeters, and the width of each of them is approximately 10 centimeters. The seeds are not laid out, but scattered on the surface of each strip. There are about 10 grams of seeds per square meter.

This method of planting does not require thinning, since there is enough free space next to each other for each seed. After planting, everything is repeated according to the usual pattern: the seeds are covered with soil, compacted, watered and mulched.

Young shoots can appear within 7-8 days after planting. All types of onions grow green feathers at the initial stage of development. Therefore, watering should be carried out moderately. In dry and hot summers, one to two waterings per week will be enough. And at the stage of bulb formation, watering vegetable plants is not recommended at all.

If at an important stage of bulb formation there are unfavorable weather conditions - heavy rain does not stop for several days, then you need to protect the plants from excess moisture and rotting with the help of protective covers. If there are arcs in the beds, then a plastic film is laid out on them, which will hide the plants from the rain and protect the soil from unnecessary moisture.

The condition of the soil is of no small importance for growing onion sets. The beds must be promptly cleared of weeds. A mulch layer must be mandatory, as it will provide reliable protection not only for plants, but also for the soil.

The time for harvesting can be determined by the external signs of the onion set. It is ready for harvesting if its feathers begin to turn yellow, and the bulbs seem to lie on the beds. This usually occurs between late July and mid-August.

All bulbs must first be removed from the ground along with the feathers, and then laid out to dry under a cover that will reliably protect from precipitation, and left there for two weeks. On clear sunny days, onions can be laid out directly in the sun on the beds - this will speed up the drying of the onion feathers. Dry tops are usually cut off, leaving small two-centimeter tails on the bulbs.

Onion sets can be stored in a cool basement or at home. Cardboard boxes or small bags made of natural fabric are suitable as storage containers. When storing in the basement, the required temperature is from 0 to 3 degrees Celsius, and in a living room - about 18 degrees. Under other temperature conditions, the onion will spoil its sowing qualities.

Bulbs measuring less than 1 centimeter in diameter are best stored in cool conditions, while larger ones are stored better in warm conditions.

How to plant onion sets (video)

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How to grow onion sets from seeds and always have a good harvest?

PREPARING SEEDS FOR SOWING

A month before planting, the seeds are checked for germination. Take 15-20 pieces and keep them in a damp cloth for 2-3 days. Before sowing, to protect against fungal diseases, seeds wrapped in cloth are first dipped in hot water (45-50 °C) for 15 minutes, and then in cold water for 1 minute.

After this, the seeds are soaked in warm water (22-26 ° C) for 36 hours, then the water is drained and the seeds are kept for 1-2 days at room temperature so that the fabric in which they are wrapped is constantly damp.

Seeds can be prepared for sowing in another way. The container is filled with water, oxygen is supplied under pressure and the seeds are lowered for 20-24 hours. Then they are dried in air for 15-20 minutes until they flow, and they are immediately sown on a previously prepared bed.

PREPARING THE BED

Onions are sown where cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and peas used to grow. The place for sowing is chosen to be open, sunny, dry, on loamy soils, seasoned with organic and mineral fertilizers.

The beds are made low, no more than 100 cm wide; 3-4 kg of manure humus or compost and 2-3 kg of peat are added per 1 m2 per bed. From mineral fertilizers, add 1 tablespoon of superphosphate and nitrophoska or nitroammophoska and 3 tablespoons of wood ash. The bed is dug to a depth of 18-20 cm, mixing all the fertilizers.

The prepared bed is leveled, compacted, watered with a solution of copper sulfate (1 tablespoon of copper sulfate or copper oxychloride per 10 liters of water 40-45 ° C) at the rate of 2 liters per 1 m 2 and covered with film for 1-2 days before sowing.

SOWING SEEDS

Seeds are sown on April 20-25. Before sowing, the bed is marked: step back 10 cm from the edge and make three grooves along it with a distance of 5 cm from each other and a depth of 2 cm, then step back 14-15 cm and again make three grooves, etc. (Fig. 15). Seeds are sown in furrows every 2-3 cm and covered.

After sowing, the soil in the garden bed is slightly compacted and carefully watered with water at the rate of 2-3 liters per 1 m2.

Rice. 15. Scheme of sowing nigella onion seeds for sets

In the case of sowing with dry seeds, the bed is first watered, then furrows are made, each furrow is poured with hot water from a kettle again, and only after that the seeds are sown. Every 3 days (until germination) the grooves with seeds should be carefully watered with a small amount of water.

Onion seeds germinate slowly, so the bed must be covered with a film, which is stretched over arcs 20-30 cm high. The film cover retains soil moisture and accelerates the emergence of seedlings (after 6-7 days), but it is better to apply the covering material in one layer.

When emerging from the ground, the onion looks like a loop (cotyledon). Often gardeners bury the seeds too deeply in the soil, as a result, not the cotyledons, but the roots come to the surface. Such plants die. This can also happen due to very dense clay soil.

If sowing is done frequently, then the seedlings must be thinned out so that the distance between the seedlings is 2-3 cm.

The loops (cotyledons) straighten after 12-16 days, then the first true tubular leaf appears. A second leaf emerges from the base of the first leaf, and so on.

CARE OF ONION SETS

Care consists of watering, weed control, pests and diseases, and fine loosening.

Onion sets are watered once a week in May-June, and in hot, sunny weather - 2 times a week at the rate of 5-8 liters per 1 m2. In July, watering is sharply reduced as the bulbs begin to ripen. In hot weather, water once a week with a small dose to prevent the bulb from wilting. Watering is done carefully, from a small watering can using the sprinkling method, but so as not to break the feather.

Onion sets are loosened if the soil is compacted. Then loosening is done in wide row spacing to a depth of 2-3 cm.

Onion crops must be clean. Emerging weeds must be destroyed while they are still small, since when weeding large weeds, the bulbs can be moved and they will stop growing. Before weeding, onion sets need to be watered so that the weeds are pulled out well.

If leaf growth is slow, onion sets can be fed. In 10 liters of water, dilute 1 tablespoon of liquid sodium humate or 1 tablespoon of urea, or 2 tablespoons of “Ideal” fertilizer and water 3-4 liters per 1 m 2.

CLEANING AND STORING SETS

A sign of onion ripening is lodging and yellowing of the leaves. The sets are harvested from July 20 to August 10, depending on their ripening. Even if the leaves have not completely yellowed, you still need to pull out the onion and spread it in a thin layer for 12-15 days to dry thoroughly.

The onions are dried in the sun, then the dried leaves are removed, and the heads are additionally dried for 2-3 days at a temperature of 30-35 °C near heating devices or a Russian stove. Such thorough drying protects the onions from neck rot and downy mildew.

After all these operations, the onion sets are sorted. Small bulbs, 1-1.5 cm in size, are best planted before winter in early October. Large sets, over 1.5 cm, are poured into boxes of 8-10 kg or in canvas bags of 10-20 kg. Canvas bags are tied, placed in plastic bags and stored in a dark place at a temperature of 18-20 ° C. If the sets are stored at a temperature higher or lower than recommended, the bulbs will go into arrows when planted.

Once a month, the onions are inspected to eliminate rotten, dried out, sprouted heads.

Onion sets store very well at room temperature in closed cardboard candy boxes.