When growing onions from seed I usually start them in January. I am behind this year and still haven’t got them planted. I may give it a try because I’ve already got the seeds and they don’t last very well. However, I wouldn’t go out an buy seeds to start onions from seeds at this time of year.

I’ve got spanish onion sets from the feed store and I started planting last week. The earlier they’re in the garden the better as they will make more leaves before starting to bulb when the change in daylight hours triggers them to switch to making a bulb. The more leaves it has, the more energy it can harvest from the sun to make a large, sweet onion. Full sun is best.

I plant them by preparing the soil as you would for any veggie and then just pushing the onion sets in the ground. If there are some sets that seem too small, I plant them closer together and use the smaller ones as green onions. I usually aim for about 6" apart in all directions.

Last year was the first time I grew onions from sets. There may be fewer varieties available, but it is way easier than starting from seed. I don’t think that there are onions that will grow quite as sweet as the ones that are imported from the southern US, but it is still a fun & worthwhile crop to grow. They’re easy to poke into the soil around other plantings too, which can be pretty space-efficient.

I purchased some white onion sets today, got 1 pound for $1.50. I won’t be planting that many so will probably have some to offer for trade. At that price I can’t go wrong.