The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-05-22
Growing Onion Sets.

The bulk of the onions grown in the
south, especially in the home gardens,
are grown from sets planted out either in
the fall or during the months of January
or February. Philadelphia is the chief
distributing point for onions sets, from
which many thousands of bushels are
shipped yearly to southern gardeners.
Market gardeners plant them out ex-
tcnsively between Sept. 10 and Nov 10,
and market the onions in the immature
stage during March, April and May.
Sales can begin in March whenever
the winter proves mild enough, and the
paintings are made early in the fall and
on rich land.
When the weather of January and
February is severe growth is so retarded
that it will be late in April before they
are large enough to sell readily.
Some years these set grown onions
have a greaU tendency to shoot to seed
while the onion is still quite small, and
when this is the case the crop is more or
less a failure.
few viii throw up seed stalks under
the best conditions of weather, seed and
culture, and this can be readily borne
with, but when the greater proportion do
this, as has frequently occurred in our
past experience, the loss is very great
This forming the seed stalk renders the
onion undesirable for table use. Much
depends upon the variety, manner of
growing the sets, time of planting them
out and conditions of weather, whether
the loss will be great or less from this
cause.
The practice of sowing the seed is be-
coming more common with our gardeners,
as the onions grown from seed keep much
better than those grown from sets, and
some grow their own sets or grow young
plants to set out after the manner OBJ
served with beets or lettuce.
When it is desired to grow the sets one
Of TWO plans may be adopted-the drill or
broadcast The drill plan is preferable
where any considerable quantity is to be
grown, but when only small quantity is
wanted the seed may be sown broadcast
in beds three to four feet wide in the fol
lowing manner: Prepare the soil with
ploT or fork any time between Feb. Is
and March 25. Apply no manure unless
it bc little mineral matter. Rake the
beds level and then broadcast enough land
plaster to make the surface uniformly
white. This is done to assist the
slghi in sowing the seeds Devenly.
Then sow the seeds some
YOU know to be fresh and sound and of
good variety, at the rate of fifteen or
LNtAuN 10 81 NdIc lHCll, lH6A IOll buO Deu
with a light roller or straight barrel, thus
pressing the seed into the soil. If this is
done late in March and the weather is
dry and warm it would be an advantage
TO water the bed and apply light coat of
straw TO remain five or six days. In Feb
ruary this is not essential, neither may it
be in March. Merely helpful in securing
prompt termination in dry weather.
Ahe wedding. of course, must be done
bJ hand until the onions can take care of
themselves. Later three months say,
when the tops begin to turn yellow and
indicate maturity pull up the sets and
let them dry in the sun and then put
away in dry, dark place until wanted.
In SOIL full of grass and weed seeds an eX-
cellcnt adjunct is to have on hand a load
oil river sand, on rather clean sand, and
cover the beds after rolling half inch
deep with it. The sand will keep down
inc grass and weeds considerably.
In drill culture have the soil we'll pull
yeized, and lay very shallow drills two
1eeJ apart. using board two inches wide
with a square end to lay off the seed drills
with This gives a drill two inches wide,
ana II should be not over one-quarter of an
men deep. Whiten this drill with land
plaster and then SOW the seed evenly over
the drill. Rake lightly soil enough to
cover the seed and roll. Cultivate just
enough TO keep down weeds, drawing out
any that come up in the drill with the
hand.
=. Rows can be only fifteen inches apart
II hoe cultivation alone is intended. With
little care it is very simple matter to
grow onion sets. The essentials summed
up are: Good seed, good variety, shallow
sowing and shallow culture Just sufficient
10 keep the soil clean and pulling them at
the proper time and hoeing them in the
proper way. Their culture need not be
attempted, however, if done in hap
hazard way.
:, AS previously stated, we regard the
Italian variety as the best adapted to the
purpose of growing sets.