We try to have onions available year round for our Eatwell Box. These pictures were taken on the farm on Monday and illustrate at what stage two of the three plantings we need are now to achieve this goal.
Planting #1: Sown in Late August and planted in November these grow through the winter and we harvest the bulbs in June. The varieties are 'short day' which means they get the trigger to form bulbs when the day length is 12+ hours long. We start harvesting these as green onion in late March.
Planting #2: (photo above) Sown in February these are 'long day' onions which need 14 hours of day length to trigger their bulb formation. These are harvested in August and the bulbs stored for use through November.
Planting #3: (photo below) Sown in late June these will be harvested purely for ‘green onions’ from late November through to March. We use the 'short day' varieties for this planting. If not harvested before March these onions will flower as they receive their bulb forming trigger in late summer.
Onions are biennials which means they spend their first year forming  a storage bulb. In the second year the bulb produces a seed head.
Our Onion seed comes from John Bauer at Snow Seed.