How to plant onion sets
Right. For all of you folks wanting to know how to plant onion sets…. here it is. The ultimate, definitive ‘how to’.
(For those of you wondering what I’m on about, trust me: there are LOADS of people who want to know how to do this. How do I know? Because I get spectacular numbers coming to the site from a ‘how to plant onion sets’ search in Google).
It’s piss easy. In 3 steps:
- Dig and rake over your onion bed for a smooth, level surface (I flatten my soil with a plank so I can place the sets perfectly)
- To plant each set, make a small hole about a inch deep with a finger, put in the set and gently firm soil around it to leave only the top ‘tail’ sticking above soil surface. DO NOT PUSH SETS INTO HARD SOIL – it damages their tiny roots
- Plant sets at least six inches (15cm) apart (preferably a little more) in rows a foot (30cm) apart
Er, that’s it. Honest – no mystery.
All you have to do now is weed the beds regularly and water in very dry weather (don’t water too often, though – onions tolerate and even prefer a bit of drought).
I think my mistake was planting them too deep!
April 7th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Thanks soilman, I’m planting a set on Saturday. Now I know!
April 7th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
I plant mine too close. For months, they wage a merciless turf war, and, ultimately, the delicate, artistic types lose, but a few live on to fight another day. The giant muscular ones always win and get the salami sandwich trophy.
April 8th, 2011 at 4:11 am
I have asked many questions over the years but never how to plant an onion..lol.
I don’t go to quite so much effort…I just run the tiller over the ground and push them in…job done. You did forget to mention however that they can be planted upside down…something I forgot to mention to the kids one year when they were helping out……I got two onions that year…the two I planted whilst demonstrating!!
April 11th, 2011 at 10:21 am