You're probably on time. Mine came last week, and I'm going to try and hold them for a couple more weeks. Red
Creole
Highlander

Red River, and Candy

You're certainly not ordering too late. Onions cannot be planted too early because they're only cold hardy to a certain extent. The nights we are having now probably are borderline too cold for them still.

I ordered TX 1015Y (aka Texas SuperSweet), Candy and Copra. Mine are due to arrive here around Valentine's Day and hopefully we'll be warm enough then to plant them at that time. If we aren't, they can be held in a cool dry location for at least 3 weeks, and some cold, wet Springs, I've held them up to six weeks before planting and they grew just fine.

I'm pretty sure I only had TX 1015Y and Candy on my cool season grow list, and added Copra when I ordered because I wanted a long-storage onion. This partially defeats my attempt to grow less, although growing 3 varieties is less than growing 5 or 6 or more.

We still have about 100 onions left from last year's harvest, though many are sprouting and probably unusable at this point. That's okay. I chopped and froze tons of them last year for use in cooking once the fresh ones ran out. If you want onions to use over a prolonged period, chose some of the long-keepers like Highlander, Red River or Copra. They are a more pungent onion, but easily store 2 to 3 times longer fresh than the sweet onions. I like to grow both kinds.

I ordered copra and red river this year. Part of me says I should get a sweet red onion for DH. How does red river compare to red creole taste wise? We'll see what Atwoods has when they come in.

I asked for onions for Valentine's Day instead of flowers and received mine a week ago Thursday. They're stored in a dry cool place with the hopes that overnight temps will rise. I am thinking maybe I should plant the Candy variety sooner though. Daryl picked Red Candy Apple, Copra, and Red Zeppelin (the name caught his attention, lol) as well. I wish I had specifically requested the TX 1015Y. I think they did the best of all my lame attempts last year, but I'll have fun experimenting and learned last year some improvements for this year. We ate our last onion a couple weeks ago, so not too bad for a second year of onion growing (thanks to Dawn's expert advice.)

We ordered 2 cases 1015 yellow sweet , I case red Belle and 1 case intermediate mix.

Like Dawn, I'm cutting way back on numbers. I'll probably go with 2-3 bunches of 1015Ys, a couple of either Superstar or Candy, a couple of Copra and I haven't decided on which red I want. I have to plant a few red onions to keep the Janet happy!

Up here I'm going to plant 1 bunch each of Candy, Red Candy, Superstar, and Copra. I think I'm going to give 1015Y a try as well. My local gardening store offers 1015Y and the owner claims that it will bulb up here so what the heck. The store doesn't get their Dixondale shipment in until late February and I'll try to get them planted by mid March weather permitting.

We still have about 2 dozen left from June's harvest. They are sprouting, but I've been using them and they taste okay and aren't mushy. I haven't purchased an onion in 8 months and that feels good. Not that onions are expensive, but it's still so nice.

I'm going to try to freeze some this year as well. After next school year our extra freezer should clear out. We store a lot of stuff for the band right now. BUT there's room for a few onions this year.

Red Zeppelin onions for Valentines Day, Sandplum! That's so great!

Jacob, let us know how your onions-started- from seed process goes.

This year I wanted to try something different from the Red Creole and Texas Legend that I always grow. In my planner, I've selected Southern Belle Red and Texas Super Sweet. It IS my planner, so I can change that, but won't. Those are my two selections for the year.

Amy, Red River is a sweet onion and Red Creole is a more pungent, spicy type of onion, so their flavor is quite different.

Sandplum, Onions for Valentine's Day are a very practical gift. I like that! Red Zeppelin is a very late-season, long-daylength type that is recommended for the more northern portions of the long daylength area, so I am unsure how well it will bulb up for you in your more southern area. However, the long daylength types that I've grown do bulb up well even this far south, so I think there's some hope that Red Zeppelin will as well.

Jacob, Onions are funny that way. There is a difference in how well they survive the cold versus whether the cold they survive might later make them bolt. Twenty degrees is my mental cutoff for onion survival, but I've found they can freeze/rot in persistently wet soil even at 20-25 degrees. So, I think the cold tolerance is better in drier soil. Also, it depends on the size of your onions when the cold hits them. If you drop into the mid twenties or lower once the onions have six or more leaves, they are much more likely to bolt later on than if they are hit by those temperatures while smaller. The reason this occurs is because onions are biennials. Once they are hit by temperatures in the low 20s after they have reached the sixth leaf stage, they interpret that cold as a reason to stop growing as if they are going dormant at the end of their first growing season. When they start regrowing, which they will since the daylength is increasing in Spring and not decreasing like it would be in autumn, they "think" it is a new year and that it is time to flower and form seeds---and a month or two later they will bolt. Sometimes they all bolt, sometimes only some do, and I think the difference is just how large they were or weren't when a week-long cold spell got them. So, even once they hit the 6th leaf stage, even just an occasional cold night here or there may not induce them to bolt later---but a solid week of persistent cold in the wrong range often will.

When in doubt, I plant onions a week or two later than recommended if the cold weather is persisting. I'd rather get slightly smaller bulbs from a later planting than have the onions bolt in April or May before they can bulb up to their full size.

Overall the last few winters have been warmer than usual and the bolting problem has been non-existent or almost non-existent. I hope this is not the winter that stops the long period without bolting because it sure has been nice.

Dawn

I just left Atwoods. They have dixondale onions in. $1.99 a bunch 1015y, a white that I can't remember which name and a red that the dixondale label just said sweet red. I got 1015 and the red. You think it'll be too early to put them out this weekend

Fruit trees will be out soon. Can't wait for spring

Mike

The Atwoods down here has has them for about three weeks---too early for our location, but I guess people start asking for them early, so they order them to arrive early to please those early birds.

Not being able to predict the weather, I don't know if it is too early or not. When you look at your extended forecast, do you see any big cold spell coming where it might remain below 20 degrees for 5-7 days? If not, you probably can get away with planting early if you don't mind taking the risk. Replacement onions, after all, are available if yours freeze or bolt before Atwood's runs out.

I was relieved to see my onions pent last night in TX. They are on the way, and it was a cold night here last night. Should be good for the next couple of days.

Onions arrived today. I will not put them out till after this big cold spell coming up. I think I will get some Atwoods red onions, too.

Speaking of Dixondale Farms and their onions, the Dixondale Farms family lost their beloved long-time leader, Mr. Wallace Wiley Martin on January 25, 2018. It is one of his daughters, Jeanie Martin Frasier and her husband, Bruce Frasier (current President of DF) that run the farm now. Mr. Martin lived a very long and eventful life, and he was one of the onion growers who worked with Texas A&M University to help develop our beloved Texas Supersweet 1015Y Onions. Just a couple of years ago, he was inducted into the Texas Produce Hall of Fame. I remember reading about it, probably in one of the monthly Dixondale Farms newsletters. Bruce already was running the company when I started buying Dixondale Onions online in the late 1990s or early 2000s, but Mr. Martin still was very involved in the whole operation.

Some of the highlights of his funeral home obituary are mentioned in the article linked below if you want to read about the life of this great American, who was huge in Texas agribusiness circles.

The Packer: Mr. Martin's obituary

I think I'll wait another week or two on planting mine. Still have a few low 20's in the forecast

I think that's a good idea. It looks like the really cold nights aren't done with us yet. February may be the shortest month, but sometimes it seems incredibly long as we wait for those very cold February nights to just hurry up and go away so we can plant.

That'll give me a little more time to make sure my beds are prepared properly...I hope. Seems like there's always something I need to do that's school related.

Carol

man i was hoping to put mine out this weekend but the weather looks yucky. I went by Carmichaels in Bixby after dropping my daughter off at School. They have dixondale onions and more varieties than Atwoods. I want to pick up some Candy. My only concern is they are on the front covered porch outside. We had a low of 11 just monday morning and 20's every morning since. Carmichaels is the biggest vegetable farmer in town and knows what they are doing but that still concerns me to buy those plants.

mike

I have limited funds for the next month, but I really want to get some onions and put them in while I can - soon as it's not freezing. I haven't planted in the 'plain topsoil' where they'll be in years. If you only had a little bit of funds for soil amendment or ferts for the planting of onions, what would you choose?

PJ

Where are you located, PJ?

I'm in the NE corner of OK - smack in the middle of Zone 6.

Ahh. Down near Wagoner here. What is the condition of your proposed onion bed? Do you have ANY natural amendments at hand? What's your soil like?

Right or wrong, we were much more focused on getting the beds built, and in fact, haven't really used hardly ANY fertilizer yet. I'm not the one to be advising, but we started by building the beds up. What do the rest of you say? We started the compost "bed" three years ago, we have tons and tons of leaves, so use those; have bought alfalfa hay (which we love--it's expensive--down here it was nearly $11 a bale last fall, but one bale goes a long way!); we put twigs and small branches at the bottom of the beds, and we bought a little bit of topsoil the first year, but none since. This is our third year with the beds. And we added a lot of raised garden soil ($$$), some peat, more hay, and compost last fall.. I'm really not even thinking about fertilizer at this point, just keep adding more "stuff." Well. . . so guess that's what I'd choose! lol

When old onions sprout can you eat the sprout part?

PJ, I'm going to tell you a secret. When I was trying to do straw bale gardening, you put some kind of nitrogen fertilizer on the bales to prep them. (Start them decomposing). There's a whole routine for this. It can be done with organic ingredients, but I chose a cheap, high nitrogen fertilizer. Before planting onions last year we put a cup of that nitrogen in the bed before fluffing up the soil. Onions like nitrogen. Organic nitrogen is often listed as bone and blood meal or alfalfa meal. You can get a 40 pound bag of alfalfa at atwoods pretty cheap. We sprinkled the big cubes (sold as horse feed, I think) on the garden last fall. They aren't breaking down like I'd hoped, but then there's been no rain. The previous bag was finer than the big cubes, pellets, I think. Some people soak this stuff in a bucket and pour the tea on the garden. I just sprinkle it on top and let rain make tea.

Kim I have planted sprouting onions to make flowers. I don't know why you couldn't eat young sprouts, but I have found older leaves to be tough and fibrous.

I think I just want to try shallots but dixondale won't have them until early March. anyone have a trusted source? I would be willing to split an order as I don't have room for a whole order?

Hmmm, I plant mine with garlic in the fall. If Dixondale has them in March, maybe they've been overwintered and it won't matter that it's March? Someone with more experience chime in.

what Amy said...