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Onions: The Worst Day to Plant - Don't Fall into the Trap
25.02.2025 21:10
Did the onion rot in the ground or dry out before it had time to grow?
You may have chosen the worst day to plant because you were caught in a weather or cultivation trap.
Let's figure out when you definitely shouldn't plant onions so as not to lose the harvest.
Wet soil after rain
Planting onions in damp soil is a sure way to ruin them. After heavy rains, the soil becomes heavy, water stagnates, and the roots begin to rot.
Cornell University confirms that too much moisture is deadly for onions, especially in clay soils (cce.cornell.edu). If you plant onion sets in such a bed, they will turn into mush within a week.
How to avoid? Wait until the soil dries out — the top layer should crumble in your hands. If the area is low, make high beds (20–25 cm) so that the water drains.
The heat is above +30°C
The second enemy is the scorching sun. If the air temperature is above +30°C, the onion sets do not take root well: the upper part dries out, and the roots do not have time to take root. This is especially dangerous for small onion sets (up to 1 cm), which quickly lose moisture. As a result, instead of bulbs, you will get dry feathers.
Solution: Plant onions on cool days with a temperature of +15–20°C. In the southern regions, this is April, in the middle zone — early May. If the heat has caught you by surprise, cover the bed with agrofibre for 5–7 days.
Incorrect onion sets
It’s not the day, but the material itself that can become a trap. If the onion sets were stored in the cold (below +10°C), they will go into the arrow, not into the head. Or, conversely, dried out onion sets from the store simply won’t germinate. Gardener Alan Titchmarsh notes in his book How to Garden (2019): “Onions are capricious, they need comfort from the very beginning.”
Check: take 1–2 cm onion sets, dense, without mold. Before planting, warm them up at +25°C for two days to “wake them up”.
Ideal day for planting
Choose a dry, cool day with a temperature of +15–18°C. The soil should be loose, warmed up to +10–12°C. Wind is not a problem, but put off heavy rain. With such conditions, your onions will grow healthy and strong, without any unpleasant surprises!
