The two most popular types of onions are ordinary onions and bunching onions. Ordinary onions are bulbs that lie on or close to the surface of the soil and bear 18-inch high hollow rounded blue-green leaves.
Never pick any wild plant that looks like parsnip; the poisonous water hemlock is easily mistaken for it. Good varieties of parsnips are All American, Guernsey, Model and Hollow Crown. A 15-foot row yields about 15 pounds in a single harvesting.
Fertilize onion plants. twice-when they are about 6 inches tall and again when they are about 12 inches tall; scatter a 4-inch band of 5-10-5 fertilizer along each side of the row at the rate of 3 ounces to 10 feet of row. Onions have shallow roots and need constant moisture.
Early Yellow Globe and Ebenezer, which keep three months or more; and Utah Sweet Spanish, a large variety that keeps about two months. Among the good red-skinned varieties are Red Burgundy, which keeps about two months; and Red Weathersfield and Southport Red Globe, which keep three months or more. A 10-foot row of onions yields about 10 pounds over a period of 10 weeks. Bunching onions, also called green onions or scallions, form mild-flavored thick stems instead of bulbs.
The plants are cold resistant and can be grown over winter to provide tender young stems in early spring. Bunching onions keep only one to two weeks. Good varieties are Evergreen White Bunching and Hardy White Bunching. A 10-foot row yields about 10 bunches over four weeks.
Onions grow best in soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.0. They can be started from seeds, small bulbs (called sets) or small plants. Because onions grown from seeds need five months to mature and because the plants are tedious to weed when small, it is easier and faster to use sets or young plants.
