I knew wasn't alone in finding humor in some of the plants I see them selling in the stores. But, hey, they've figured out a way to make a buck!

I've gotten to the point, I won't even pre-start squash or cucumbers. Either I'm doing it all wrong or it's a waste of time. My side by side direct sow always surpasses my transplants! Well, except for last year, the above normal moisture stalled everything and keep them about even.

Some of my peppers and tomatoes that the mice forced me to move in the house, finally started sprouting. Now I need to cut some hail screen and fashion a cover of sorts to put over the flats. The mice haven't shown any sign of being back, but I don't want to find out the hard way.

It took a lot of strength to resist buying onions at the fair. I may not have the strength to resist today.

I am sorry buddy, but you will get no help here. I love buying and planting onions....you have found your tribe, my friend...

How was the fair? I looked up the location and would have liked to have gone, but it just wasn't in the cards!

I have come up with several ways to justify planting more, and I may succumb before it's over! If I run across some really nice bunches of Candy, I'm a goner! The ones I've looked at so far weren't Dixondale, so I held off.

I'm thinking about setting aside a couple of areas in the main garden for the grandkids. If that happens, they have to have their own onion patch, right? I know, it's terrible, using innocent children to justify my addiction!

I might be there with you in the onion category next year. Our little farm is selling fresh eggs and baked goods, next summer we might make the garden bigger and sell produce. But I don't want to plant 1,000 onions! ughh!

Yesterday I got onions in and seeded some other things. I also found an old dried up patty pan squash. I planted some seed out of that just because. If it makes it then good. If it doesn't, oh well. There is always April 15th, then try again.

You people have a really serious onion problem. Jeeze, what are we gonna do with y'all???? I planted my onions and I am done and I am not going to plant any more. I am not, not, not. Today I was in two garden centers and I did not even look at the onions. C'mon, onion planting is over, let's move on. (grin) I did, however, look at tomato plants, though I did not buy any. See there, I can exercise restraint upon occasion.

I feel like I'm already growing four times as many onions as we need, so it is time to stop adding more onions and to move on to something else. How many onions does one family use in one year? Certainly not the 844 I planted last week and that was on top of the 50 or so I already had planted for green onions.

I guess we all can swap onion recipes when harvest time comes. If anyone is looking for great onion info, go to Dixondale's website and get on the mailing list for their monthly newsletter, or you can read all the back newsletters there. They often have wonderful recipes during the harvest time.

I wonder if people who are new to this forum are reading this thread and thinking we all are nuts? Well, we are nuts, aren't we? We are gardening nuts and apparently we also are onion nuts.

Dawn - Amen. We are all gardening nuts! That's why this forum is one of the most active! And this is me, that still has room in the onion bed going tomorrow after work in search of more onions to plant. The ones I previously purchased were from the Atwoods in Norman and they weren't a brand I knew...but decided to gamble. After all, it's Atwoods, right? I'm praying K&K has Dixondales.....I'll report back.

Oh, heck no, there is no way I need a newsletter reminding me about onions! I'd be trying to figure a way to grow them year round.

Dawn, you may have to put up with a few onion addicts for a few more days. (big grin!) After all, I figure most our growing season lags a week or two behind yours.

Fortunately, unless the grandkids want to plant a few in Pa's garden, I'm done. Even if they do, one bunch split four ways will likely curb their desire to crawl around in the dirt.

Now, with the urge to onion almost out of the way, I'll be turning my addictive behavior to other varieties. I doubt I'm as bad as some when it comes to tomatoes, but I do love my tomatoes! I'll wait to address the behavior of the chronic tomato grower!

14 bundles. What was I thinking? I gave 2 away as a birthday gift to another addict, but that is still 12 bundles. Your buns hurt after 5 bundles. After 12 you can't stand up. Just 4 years ago, it was 1 bundle..............

Earthsister, The onions that they had at the new (new just last year) Atwood's in Gainesville were in gigantic black feed troughs inside the store so I don't know what brand they carry, but they were large bundles and look extremely healthy. There are many named varieties available that do great in this part of the country. I expect the onions from Atwood's will do fine for you. That's where I bought my very first bundle (TX1015Y Supersweets) to plant for early green onions. I did notice that Atwood's had exactly the varieties of seed potatoes that are recommended by OSU (Norkotah, Kennebec, etc.) so it seems to me that they do pay very careful attention to supplying the right varieties for the region. I didn't look at all the varieties of onions they had because I knew I had a lot coming from Dixondale, but I did grab a bundle of 1015Ys when I saw them.

Addictedbrother, Okay, I'll cut y'all some slack since your planting season does run slightly behind mine. I'm just getting worried that "some people" might fill all their prime gardening space with onions and then not have enough space left to plant too many tomatoes, too many peppers, too much squash, etc.

Don't get me started on tomatoes. I have tried so hard to cut back how many I grow because otherwise just harvesting them takes far too much of my time, and in a realistic manner of speaking, we cannot possibly eat them all, so I can a two-year or three-year supply of tomato products every year. In theory, that is a great practice because it means if you ever have a severe tomato crop failure, you still have plenty of canned tomatoes to eat. In reality, though, since I never have a tomato crop failure, it means we need to eat up a three-year supply of tomatoes every year, or we quickly end up with a 9-year or 12-year tomato supply and I don't want to eat tomatoes that are that old.

There's something about cutting back that makes me feel panicky. So, even though there's an unspeakably high number of tomato plants in my starter flats right now, I have to stop and look at tomato plants in every single store we go into. I have to stop and look at all the tomato seeds. Why the seeds? There's never going to be any tomato seed on the seed rack that I want and don't already have. I just can't walk by without looking. With the plants, once I've bought the few early plants for tomatoes, I don't need to buy any more. So, I bought the first 5 plants. That's enough for early tomatoes, right? I'm in fine shape. Five nice plants potted up and growing very well in the February heat wave and blooming and setting fruit. What more do I need? Well, you can guess the rest of the story.

The next time I was in the store, I bought 1 more. So, that's 6. Then I saw a little pot that had three Black Cherry Plants in it the next time I was in the store, and I figured if I planted it early enough, we'd have Black Cherries in late April or May, even though I already had my seeds started, and surely from those plants we'd be harvesting Black Cherry in May or early June. Potted up separately, that brought my total to 9 early plants. Yesterday I had no intention of buying any more tomato plants. Nope. Not me. Then I saw a peat pot with 3 or 4 Cherokee Purple plants in it and had to have it. Why? Just because, I guess. If I don't stop buying early tomato plants (especially multiple plants in one little pot), there's not going to be anyplace to plant all the ones I'm growing from seed.

I might have a little onion addiction problem, but I have a big tomato addiction problem. I'm growing True Black Brandywine from seed, and didn't sow any seeds of regular Brandywine, but I can guarantee you that when I see Brandywine in the stores, I'll buy one of them...or three or six. This is why cutting back doesn't work. It makes me feel deprived and in order to address those silly feelings of deprivation, I just start buying plants instead. It is out of control this year, and that could be a problem because I already used up tons of space for cool-season plants and that will cut into available space for tomato plants in the front garden which has the best soil. Well, there's always containers.....and I can grow them in the back garden too, but it is supposed to be where all my hot season plants are going, especially sweet corn, squash, melons, cucumbers, southern peas, okra, etc.

Kim, It just gets worse. The more you grow, the more you will want to grow. Just wait and see. : )

After the week I just had, which was a warm-weather induced planting frenzy, there is no part of my body that doesn't hurt. Do I take a day off and give my poor, tired aging body a break? No way, Jose.

Yesterday I only planted a handful more plants of curly kale, green cabbage (I already had red cabbage in the ground), Swiss chard and a little bit more lettuce because I saw a variety I've never grown, and the funny part about that little bit of planting was that I told everyone that I was taking the day off from the garden on Sunday and wasn't going to plant a single thing. See how that worked out. On a day off from the garden, I planted only 37 more transplants into the ground, and if I hadn't run out of daylight, I might have transplanted some more cool-season herbs and flowers.

I am glad rain is in our forecast for today through Wednesday because it will force me to take a break from planting in the ground. I'll use the rainy days to pot up the seedlings I have growing and to start more seeds indoors. It never ends. I don't want for it to end either.

Dawn

Dawn, I can't speak for everyone, but I suspect most of us with this gardening addiction experience every emotion you described. Walking by a seed rack without looking is unheard of! Even the ones I've already looked at 12 times.

I can't imagine canning as many tomatoes as you do! I'd have to set up an account with one of the container companies just to be able a afford the jars.

Don't quote me on this but I think the onions I bought a Atwoods were Brown's Omaha. I was a little surprised they weren't carrying Dixondale. Not sure why they changed?

I get a little frustrated at our local Atwoods. It seems every 3 or 4 years, their gardening section falls flat on it's face! This year, they had onion plants in the middle of January. Now, all they have a pickup load of sets, but no plants. I just hope this doesn't carry over to the greenhouse, when it's time for them to stock plants. I start most of my own, but rely on them for backups or items I don't want to mess with.

The feedstore just down the road, carries a good selection of Bonnie products, but it gripes me to pay $4 for a tomato plant, I can get from Red Dirt at Atwoods for $1.50 for less by buying the multipacks.

As much as I try to stick to my tomato grow list (which I'll list below), I always find myself deviating some. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

After the last two years of trying to grow an isolated crop of Rutgers that have been a total failure. I had decided to just wait until Rutgers University releases seed from their efforts to revive the original strain, before I put them back on the list. Then I came up with seeds for both parent tomatoes. I guess the great Redneck Tomato Breeding project is back on! I'll be trying my hand at cross-pollinating, but it may turn into more of a landrace project.

Tomato List

Juliet

Heidi

*Amish Paste

Early Girl

Celebrity

*Rapunzel

*Marglobe

Cherokee Purple

I've since added, *JTD and will likely add Black Krim and then either *Homestead, *Arkansas Traveler or *Bradley.

*New

My goal was to keep the count to under 30, so I could concentrate on getting a small vineyard and a few fruit trees in.

P_mac (Paula?), K and K had Dixondale on Saturday.

Ah, another enabler! I love it!!!

You guys think I could plant and grow some more onions before it's time to get the okra in? I have about 50 sqft of space.

All of us who plant from seed will probably have more tomato plants than we have room to plant. Some of us take our extra to the Spring Fling and share. I usually have plenty to share with friends and neighbors and if I have too many I take them to the Senior Citizens Center. Many of those people were once gardeners and still love to have a plant or two growing in their flower bed. I always plant too many.

My son built my two raised beds today. Compost tomorrow unless it's raining. Dixondale just updated my order to 'shipped', so I should have them tomorrow or Wednesday. Looks like the rain may stop my progress for a day or two, but we need the moisture.

My Dixondale came in today! I wasn't able to plant this afternoon because it's my son's piano lesson day. And tomorrow is rain. And Wednesday is my late work day. So...Thursday or Friday will be my planting day. Maybe Saturday because I still have about 3 feet of the onion area to "weed".

Okay. About weeds. Some weeds are perennials and some are annuals? The annuals' roots are dead. They regrow from seeds. The perennials roots are alive and just waiting for the right season? Is that how it works? Most of the stuff that I'm pulling up looks dead. But maybe not. Maybe it's just not time yet. There's a few green things, but I think it's mostly henbit.

As I've been preparing that area-- weeding and pulling out roots and all, I noticed that a big part of the soil was quite nice a couple of inches deep. It was just so nice. I couldn't figure out why. THEN I remembered I dumped a bunch of pine shaving and chick poo on that area last spring.

Yay, soonergrandmom (Carol?), I'm glad I'm not the only one who hasn't planted onions yet.

Hazel, I requested that my onion plants be shipped a few days later because my weather usually delays me a little. Of course, this year I could have started planting earlier because of the nice weather, but I wasn't quite ready for them. I am not at all concerned about the delay in planting.....at least for the first ones....but I hope I get them in quickly. I will have some help getting them in this year, so I should be in good shape. My biggest problem is that I ordered too many---but what else is new. LOL I am near Grove so Dixondale's recommended date for me was 15-21 Feb, so I am only a few days beyond that.

Yes, my name is Carol, and yes I am a seed addict. LOL

Nope. Haven't planted yet. Still sitting in the bathroom in buckets. ha

Okay. I guess there's a few of us that haven't planted onions yet.

Carol, I asked for my shipping date to be Feb. 22, but they arrived on that day. Yesterday.

What do you plant in your onion area once you've harvested them? That's a question for everyone. If I plant mine on Saturday, they should be ready by June 15. Pumpkins?

Pumpkins should work. I'm planning to put in bush beans and cucumbers after my onions. After garlic will be pole beans, Egyptian Spinach and some of those pink winter radishes Baker Creek suckered me in to. Cow peas have time after onions. Actually, I have a "late" crop planned fo nearly all my beds.

Southern peas (that includes a wide range including Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, lady peas, cream peas, crowder peas and zipper peas), sweet potatoes, winter squash (not standard pumpkins that are C. pepo or C. maxima because you're likely to use those to Squash Vine Borers before they get large enough to produce a single harvest), icebox melons (which have more compact vines and shorter DTMs than larger melons), Armenian cucumbers, regular cucumbers, okra if it isn't already growing elsewhere, peppers, basil, or even fall tomtaoes. I succession plant all summer long. One crop I don't plant in June is bush beans. In my climate, 9 years out of 10, the summertime temperatures are already hot enough to cause bush bean blossoms to drop in June, so I only succession plant bush beans in March, April and sometimes early May. Then I take a bush bean planting break until mid- to late-July or early August when I plant bush beans for a fall harvest.

I start all my succession crops in plantable pots and try to have them ready to go into the ground on the same day that the earlier crop is harvested. My favorite method is to harvest in the morning, work in some compost into the bed if needed following the harvest, then transplant the succession crop into the bed in the afternoon (or early evening if that day's weather is sunny and blazing hot), mulch the new planting, water it and go to bed tired but happy. You don't have to start succession crops in plantable pots but I prefer to do it because it avoids having a bed that is empty and bare for a couple of weeks while a newly seeded crop is sprouting and it gives a harvest a couple of weeks earlier than a succession crop that is directly sown.

Because I grow many different onion varieties, they mature and are harvested at different times. Because of that, I often plant a vining crop like sweet potatoes or icebox melons or winter squash into the area harvested first. By the time I'm harvesting the later onions, the first area harvested already is filled with vines that then can run into the area harvested later. When I am succession cropping something upright like pepper plants, when I occasionally harvest an onion for fresh use (you don't have to wait and harvest them all at once, I harvest them all along the way to use fresh once they are a usable size), I plant a pepper plant in its spot. If you carefully select your onions to use fresh, you can get all your pepper plants planted right into the onion bed a month or two before the whole onion crop is harvested. Then, when you take out all the onions, the pepper plants already are well established and spreading out. When I do that, there is an almost seamless transition from an onion-filled bed to a pepper plant-filled bed. After I harvest the onions, I fill the bare space in between onion plants with either vining veggies or hot-season flowers like dwarf zinnias, begonias or angelonia I always have flats and flats of stuff grown from seed just sitting and waiting for its turn to go into the beds as succession plantings.

Because I grow many kinds of onions, including short day, intermediate day and long-day length types, the onion harvest period for me runs from mid-May to about mid-July. If I am consistent about getting the succession crops planted immediately into the parts of the onion beds that have been harvested, no one but me even notices all the onions are out of the garden and replaced by something else at the time it is occurring. Once they do notice, it is a shock, like "where did the onions go?". lol. I tell them that the onions have been being harvested and replaced for two months and they just didn't notice. I like seamless transitions like that, and I like having as little bare space for as brief of a time span as possible.

Ok, rethinking bush beans after onions. Southern peas can go there and I can use little pods like green beans as needed. Having trouble finding a place for early bush beans in the garden plan. My pole bean DTM puts it into September if I plant after garlic, so it should be ok.

Dawn, I wish we were closer, I would love to watch your garden evolve.

I did it. Thanks, hazelinok!!! I finally got by there today and left with 5 more bundles. 3 white granex, 1 candy and 1 red candy. I managed to get nice bundles, but what they have will be gone by Sunday.

So aside from planting, what's the next step after admitting you have a problem? heheh.

Oooh, Candy!

Amy, It is fun. The most fun is when a friend stops by in the morning and something, let's say it is bush beans, is there in the garden and I'm harvesting green beans. We chit chat a bit and they go on up the road. Then, in the afternoon or early evening, the same friend is driving by and sees me out in the garden still, and stops by again. By then, the bush beans are harvested and indoors, and the bush bean plants are on the compost pile. I've put in something else, like okra plants or icebox melons in that bed and, if I've managed to get it mulched, you can't tell that one crop just came out and the others went in because you don't see any disturbed soil since the mulch hides it. Those friends always do a double-take and generally say something like "I really thought you had bush beans growing there...." and they say it in a tone of voice they suggests either they are crazy or I am crazy. I'd like to think we're both crazy.

The evolution of the garden from week to week is one of the things I love most. Nature abhors a vaccum and so do I. It seems like any spot I leave bare for 3 minutes will sprout weeds, so I prefer to be a control freak and pull this thing out and pop that thing into the ground before weeds even get a chance to start popping up. I succession sow things in plantable pots that I never used to start indoors and it is because of the seamless transition, which I probably read about over and over again in each edition of John Jeavons' book "How To Grow More Vegetables...." before it finally sank into my brain that if it worked for Ecology Action, it would work for me. I like having a freshly-emptied spot put back to work immediately.

Paula, Five more bundles? You go, girl! And by that I mean you go plant those onions before you buy any more. lol. I don't know what the next step is after you admit you have a problem because none of us ever gets to the next step. We all just admit we're addicted to planting/growing and then keep on keepin' on. It's only a "problem" if you want to change, and I don't want to change. I like being garden-obsessed.

Dawn

A few days ago I noticed that my onions had new leaves growing already., and just a few days after I put them in the ground. Apparently they found the above-average temperatures to their liking.

My onions stalks(?) are getting fat. Is that good or bad?

I noticed my onions are getting new leaves too. Do yall fertilize regularly with onions like every 3 weeks or what. I really want big beautiful onions this year.

I've only planted onions once. I think I got them in the ground too late. They didn't get very big, but were tasty. My neighbor is planting onions now and told me he thinks he bought too many. Said he would give me his leftovers. I'll take 'em!

I've only planted onions once. I think I got them in the ground too late. They didn't get very big, but were tasty. My neighbor is planting onions now and told me he thinks he bought too many. Said he would give me his leftovers. I'll take 'em

I've been fertilizing every 2-3 weeks

Shawn, Do you mean the base of the onion--the neck? It is fine if it is big but don't push it too hard too early until you know that the cold weather is a thing of the past. Once onions get beyond 5 leaves, prolonged exposure to cold weather for as little as a week or two can cause them to bolt later on. You can push the growth harder later when it seems like the cold temperatures are over for good.

Kim, I fertilize pre-planting with Dixondale's 10-20-10 compost fertilizer that also has all the micronutrients the plants need. Because my soil is pretty high in nutrients as it is, I tend to slack off and not fertilizer regularly with high nitrogen every 2-3 weeks like Dixondale recommends. You can see Dixondale's fertilization recommendations at the link below. They have one recommended fertilization regime for alkaline soil and another for acidic. I assume your soil is alkaline based on your location, but I'm just guessing.

Dixondale Farms' Onion-Growing Guide

Remember that each mature leaf on an onion at the time bulbing is induced with provide one ring or layer of flesh. The ideal number of leaves to get a perfectly large and wonderful onion is 13, and theoretically that's the maximum number of leaves an onion "can" produce. However, some years I get 15 leaves on some varieties. The larger and healthier the leaves, the larger and better the bulbs. However, you don't really have to have 13 leaves to get onions that are a nice size. I've had nice-sized onions with only 9 or 11 leaves as long as those leaves were nice and big and healthy.

To get large onions, the plants need a steady supply of moisture. For most varieties, roughly 21" of water during the life of the onion plant from the time you put it in the ground until the time it begins to bulb up (roughly 3 weeks before it will be mature and ready to harvest and cure) will give you nice, large onions. How large will depend on which variety. Once they start bulbing, you stop watering and fertilizing.

One note: Red Candy Apple seems to need higher nitrogen than most other varieties. Otherwise, it produces fairly small onions, so if you are going to fertilize anything on a regular basis, be sure to fertilize Red Candy Apple. I love Candy, but Red Candy Apple never has produced anything close to the size of Candy in my garden.

Dawn

Yes the necks on several rows, maybe a 100 or so onions are getting large. Should I cut down on fertilizing and watering?

I don't know and am leaning towards saying no, don't cut back unless you find a reason to. Much depends on how big the necks were when you planted the onion plants in the ground. If what you are doing is working for you, I don't think I'd change it. I hate to interfere with success. If you are following the recommendations to feed with a heavy nitrogen fertilizer once every 2 or 3 weeks, I wouldn't change that as long as the plants seem to be responding well to it. With the watering, you will get your onions to reach their maximum potential size by giving them roughly 21" of water over the course of their life in your garden, so keep that total in mind when watering. Too much water at one time can lead to disease and rot, so you want to evenly space out that 21" of rainfall/irrigation over the entire life of the plant. The time to cut back on watering is when the onions begin to bulb up. You'll see this happening as the bulbs begin to enlarge---it will look like your onions are trying to pop up out of the soil. This usually occurs about 3 weeks before they will be reaching their mature size. Once you see that initiation of bulbing, stop watering. If the onions are too wet at maturity, they will not cure well and will not store well.

If our weather temperatures will stay in about the same range they're in now, then your onions should not be exposed to the kinds of cold temperatures that would cause them to bolt. However, if the weather were to change back to very cold nights consistently for a couple of weeks, that could cause bolting and, when that happens, it generally is the larger onions that bolt. Most years, bolting is not a problem and, when it is, it often is a problem nationwide due to wildly fluctuating temperatures. We cannot control the temperature fluctuations, so when we grow onions we just have to accept that some years we will have problems with onions bolting. When I see an onion getting ready to bolt (send up a flower stem), I just go ahead and harvest it and use it as is. Because the flower stem sprouts from the middle of the onion, it sort of opens up the onion and water/disease can get inside the onion and ruin it. Some years a few onions bolt, some years none of them bolt, and some years virtually all of them bolt. It is a weather-related occurrence that is hard to prevent, but a gardener sometimes can prevent it by not pushing growth too hard in the onions' first month in the ground when the temperatures are often quite cold. This hasn't been a cold late winter/early spring overall, so I don't think bolting will be a big issue unless a big, prolonged cold front arrives around Easter or later.

We found fresh Dixondale onions locally this year at the little "seed & feed, farmers grain" type place over in Bethany. Can't remember the name right now but it's been there for years. They had several varieties and were only $1.99 per bundle. Score!

How's everyone's onions doing?

I think mine are okay. This is only the second year I've grown them and last year was not a good experience because they nearly drowned. THIS year they all look pretty good. I planted them about a month ago and they each have 3 to 6 leaves. I've found a few lying on the ground, broken. Could be the wind or an animal? I hope it doesn't hail tonight because I have nothing to protect them.

I'm going to cry if it hails on my garden.

I skipped planting onions this year because I got tired of our crazy wind breaking their necks. I would get very few to size up. How are you guys keeping them protected from the wind?

Mine are big and happy. Most have 9 or 10 leaves. Some have 11. I planted in mid-February and our weather has been more cooperative than usual so the onions have stayed happy. It hasn't rained enough to make them get really huge, but I've been watering a bit here and there lately to try to make up for the absence of rain. Only 1 onion has bolted so far, and it is one that was so large at planting time that I planted it on scallion row to be harvested early and used as green onions with others from the bundles that were too big at planting time.

I kept hoops covered in deer netting over my onions until last week. The netting protected them from 2 hailstorms. There's no netting over them now because the plants had gotten too tall and were pushing against the netting, which can cause the leaves to break in windy weather. I had to take the hoops off most the other beds for the same reasons. Right now, the only beds with hoops/netting for hail protection are the bush beans and sweet corn, and that's because they are really new and really short whereas all the cool season stuff is much older and taller.

I briefly considered putting the hoops/netting back over the onions late this afternoon as a protective measure, but decided not to when the NWS left our county out of the Severe Thunderstorm Watch. The counties to our direct west and direct north are included in the watch, which made me a little nervous, but I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I hope everyone's gardens remain hail-free.

I planted mine the last week of February. Most of my onions have 4 or 5 leaves and they look to be as good of a crop as 2 years ago. I don't need any hail on my onions tonight!

My 1015ys and red onions have only had a couple bolts but the Texas white onions have been really bad. Maybe 50 of them have bolted.

I have had 20 or so bolt out of 524. And they weren't the far ones. Go figure, but they were all red.

My Dixondale's are doing great...my other's from Atwoods purchased and planted several weeks earlier, not so much. I didn't cover them..because their stems look strong. (the ones that survived) Hoping for the best. None bolting so far in rural NE Norman.

kylanjovan, In some past years I have had strong enough winds that onion necks have broken, but not this year. We're in a generally wind-protected area where a large woodland directly beside the garden provides a good windbreak from general winds (but not from downburst type events or severe thunderstorm winds). A permanent solution would be to plant a windbreak of evergreen shrubs near the garden if space allows. Otherwise, maybe a wooden or metal fence as a windbreak on whatever side of the garden your wind usually comes from might work. You also could use low tunnels covered with some sort of textile like row cover or shade cloth that would block at least some of the wind, but the tradeoff is that the covers would block some of the sunlight. I usually mulch my onions heavily with grass clippings or hay or straw to a depth of 2-4". Usually I start out with an inch of mulch when they are small and just keep adding more. Mulch on the ground that is several inches thick also helps provide wind protection, but you still get some onion breakage if the wind is strong enough.

High winds are hard on lots of other crops too, particularly corn. Oklahoma has so much crazy weather that sometimes it is a wonder our gardens survive it (or at least they survive it most of the time).

Dawn

I planted mine about 5 weeks ago and they are doing well. So happy!

Hooray for the onions that survived and are thriving. This is their time to shine.