Back again:

Since I had no responses, I'll assume that no one here uses this technique of growing onions and respond to my own message to drop this off the top of the page.

As of often happens, by writing this it triggered me to do more research. In addition to the Walla Walla Sweets, I found another variety which may do well for me in a fall planting: Desert Sunrise.

According to Johnny's Seeds, it's adapted to areas between 30 and 36 degrees north latitude and is designed for fall planting and spring harvest. I also found a research report where it did well at the Malheur Experiment Station in eastern Oregon which is Zone 6b and endured winter lows of -1F that winter. Since I'm in a reliable Zone 7a (it's been over 20 years since it has been below zero) and I am at 34 degrees north latitude in the Texas Panhandle, I'll give it a shot this fall.

After my partner Maria tasted the Candy onions from Dixondale Farms today, I'll definitely be ordering plants from them, regardless of the cost.

Keep up the good exchange of information here and I'll be back when I have another question that you all may be able to help me with and maybe I will develop enough skill as a gardener to participate more fully.

Thanks,

Tom Logan in the very dry, hot, windy, dusty, and smokey High Plains of the Texas Panhandle

Tom,

I'm sorry you didn't get much of a response here and suspect it is because none of us attempt to overwinter onions here.

Most of us here in Oklahoma have wildly erratic winter temperatures that may go from the teens to the 70s in one day or vice versa, or up into the 80s or 90s occasionally in Jan-March. Those fluctuating temperatures can make it hard to succeed here with overwintering onions as the erratic weather fluctuations can cause the overwintering onions to bolt once the onion is past the 4-leaf or 5-leaf stage. I'm thinking your weather temperatures must be more stable than ours?

I have planted onion transplants into the garden as early as the first week in January and so has at least one other member of this forum who is in the county east of mine, and we can get away with it in a 'hot' winter with stable temperatures, but the last few years we've had such erratic winter weather that I haven't even tried to plant any that early the last 6 or 7 years. Even planting in January is pushing it, but I have done it when I could find small enough transplants in North Texas in late December or early January.

Jay (in SW KS) and Jan (in the OK Panhandle) probably have climate conditions more similar to yours than many of the rest of us do.

I think of you west Texans every day (I was born in Ft Worth and lived there for the first 39 years of my life) and pray for rain for y'all. The wildfires have been so unspeakably horrendous there the past few months. It seems like every time it rains here in Oklahoma lately, we either get tornadoes or hail so it is risky for us to pray for rain for ourselves, so I pray for rain for y'all instead. Of course, I hope you get the rain without the pesky tornadoes or hail!
Happy gardening, and come back and visit with us often,

Dawn

Dawn,

Thanks for the reply.

While I hate to use consistent in describing our weather. The overnight lows are consistently between 18 and 35 from mid November through the the first of March (except during the few severe Arctic blasts that drop the lows into the single digits or low teens). Pretty much everything goes dormant around Thanksgiving and stays that way until early March. You're probably right in that temperature consistency is the difference. Although, I'm at roughly the same latitude as you, I'm well over 2,000 feet higher.

Last winter's success with fall planting onions may be a fluke, but I'm looking forward to trying it again. I'll report next year on my success or lack thereof. And I will be back if a another question arises or if I think I have something else to offer.

Tom

Tom, please do keep us posted. I would be very interested in your results.