Growing onions is easy

Growing onions -- harvested bulb onions (Photo by Jane Gates)

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Onions are one of the easiest vegetables to grow. You can grow them in the vegetable garden or slot them between decorative plants in the flower garden.

Being a natural bulb, onions tend to grow in clumps if left in the ground from year to year. Chives can handle cold temperatures and can form large clumps with hundreds of their tiny bulbs. They offer decorative flowers as well as tasty leaves. In areas that remain free of hard frosts, spring onions or scallions will also form clumps of full-sized, edible onions if not completely harvested the previous year. Leeks, too, are clump-forming if left in the ground, but the leeks will suffer reduced sizes when they split into multiples.

Give members of the onion family rich, well-draining soil, full sun and plenty of water. In some areas of the country the onion fly can be a problem. Onions are heavy feeders so they should be given additional food regularly. In sites where onions have grown, dig in more compost and other amendments before planting other vegetables, fruits or flowers as members of the onion family can exhaust the soil.

In warm-winter climates plant onion sets for bulb onions in either spring or fall. Leeks also prefer cool weather for growing so these will be good winter crops. Most other onions like chives and scallions will go dormant in the winter even if there are no frosts.  All onions can be planted from seed, especially the less usual, interesting varieties that will be hard to locate any other way.

Onions are easy to grow since they need little fussing and don’t attract a lot of pests. For a good, healthy, multi-use vegetable in the garden, consider growing the onion.