Crops & Breeds › Vegetable Garden
🧅 Onions
Vegetable Garden · growing reference
| Days to maturity | 60 days – 110 days, by type |
|---|---|
| Germination | 10 days |
| Direct sowing | +14 days vs transplants |
| Spacing | 4″ in the row × 12″ between rows |
| Planted as | seed |
| Water | ~1–1.5 in a week |
When to plant
In USDA zone 6, for example: Plant around Mar 18 — as soon as the ground can be worked. Start seeds indoors ~8 weeks earlier.
| Spring | |
|---|---|
| Zone 3 | Apr 17 |
| Zone 4 | Apr 9 |
| Zone 5 | Mar 29 |
| Zone 6 | Mar 18 |
| Zone 7 | Mar 4 |
| Zone 8 | Feb 15 |
| Zone 9 | Jan 23 |
Dates are the typical window for each zone's average frost dates — your own last frost can differ by a couple of weeks. Zone 10 and warmer is effectively frost-free: plant to the season, not the frost. Southern Hemisphere: shift six months.
Onion Types
- Bunching · 60 days · 0.1–0.1 lbs/plant — Scallions — a sister species that never bulbs; sow thick, cut at pencil width, resow all season.
- Set · 95 days · 0.3–0.6 lbs/plant — Dormant bulblets, straight in the ground — the beginner shortcut, weeks ahead of seed; watch for bolting.
- Sweet · 100 days · 0.5–1 lbs/plant — The mild slicers (Walla Walla, Ailsa Craig, Granex) — big and juicy; eat by fall, they don't store.
- Storage · 110 days · 0.3–0.7 lbs/plant — The pungent keepers — cure hard after the tops fall, cellar till spring (reds are varieties).
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