Planting black onions before winter

Ordinary onions are a biennial crop. In the first year, the onion crop is a set, small heads with a diameter of one to three centimeters. To get full-fledged bulbs, next season you need to plant the seedlings in the ground again. The onion sets themselves grow from seeds, which are popularly called nigella, as they are painted black. You can sow onion seeds in the spring, but gardeners often do this in the fall. Winter sowing has its advantages, so you should definitely try this method on your own farm.

When to plant black onions before winter, and how to do it right – all this can be found in the article.

Pros of winter planting black onions

Onion crops ripen long enough, so the development cycle of such plants has to be divided into two seasons. If you sow nigella before winter, in late spring or early summer you can harvest the sowing, and plant the plot with other crops.

It would seem, why bother with small seeds, if you can immediately buy ready-made sets and grow onions in one season? However independent cultivation of onions from nigella by the winter method has a lot of advantages:

• the choice of varieties and varieties of onions in seeds is much larger than in sets;
• the onion will grow strong, it will be hardened and adapted to the conditions of a particular region, soil composition, climate;
• you don’t have to store planting material, which will save space in the basement or in the pantry;
• in the spring, the gardener will have time for other activities, because the nigella will be planted in the fall;
• spring soil is well saturated with moisture, which will save on irrigation;
• with the first warmth, the seedlings will grow and the winter nigella will germinate much earlier than if it were sown in the spring.

Planting black onions before winter and its stages

In any case, the winter planting of onion seeds will not be difficult for the gardener, and the benefits of this will be considerable. Firstly, it will be possible to reduce the period of full ripening of onions, and secondly, you will not have to spend money on buying sets.

If you collect fresh onion seeds every year, you can completely forget about buying planting material – the “onion farm” will become completely independent. Although the technology for growing onions from nigella is not considered complicated, but here you also need to know some subtleties and nuances.

Is it possible to grow nigella seeds on your own

Chernushka does not have to be bought annually, it is justified only if the gardener wants to experiment with different varieties or new onion hybrids. The easiest way is to grow black onions on your own.

It is quite easy to do this. It is only necessary to choose a few of the highest quality and largest bulbs and plant them in spring or autumn (this is not important). Around the middle of summer, the plants will begin to bloom – they will throw out arrows, which are the onion inflorescences. Very quickly, small seeds of black or dark brown color will ripen in the umbrellas of peduncles – this is the nigella.

Onion seeds need to be collected and laid out on paper so that they dry thoroughly.

Preparing chernushka for planting

Before planting the onion, the nigella must be prepared. The first stage of preparation is seed sorting. It is imperative to sort the nigella, as larger seeds can germinate several weeks earlier than the smallest ones.

To sort seeds, you can use one of the following methods:

1. Take a sieve with cells of different sizes and just sift the dry nigella.
2. You can also shake the black onion on the fabric.
3. Place all the seeds in water and wait until some of them settle to the bottom. After that, the onion seeds floating on the surface are collected and again placed in water, as a result, only the smallest seeds and debris unsuitable for planting will remain.

Even before planting, the nigella must be checked for germination. They do this in several stages:

• several seeds are counted from the entire batch;
• take a paper napkin, fold it in several layers and moisten with water;
• black onion is laid out on a saucer and covered with a damp cloth;
• create conditions favorable for onion germination: place the saucer in a plastic bag and put it in a warm place;
• during the week they monitor the condition of the napkin and seeds, if necessary, add a little water.

The results of such a check are judged by the number of nigella seeds germinated per week: if there are more than a third of them, the onion is suitable for planting. If, under such conditions, less than 30% of the nigella sprouted, this batch of seeds can already be thrown away – it will not be possible to grow a good crop from it.

When sowing winter chernushka

In different regions, onion seeds are sown at different times. After all, a lot here depends on the climate, on when stable frosts begin, whether there is snow in winter and other factors.

In most regions of the country, winter nigella is planted no earlier than the end of October. They finish sowing onions, usually by mid-November. If you plant the nigella too early, the seeds will germinate and will certainly freeze out with the first frost. Therefore, in such a matter it is better not to rush.

Often onions are sown even in frozen ground or under snow – this is more effective than premature planting with frozen seedlings. In the frozen ground, small seeds immediately “fall asleep” and start growing only with the arrival of spring warmth.

How to sow nigella before winter

The procedure for sowing onion seeds is a simple process, but here it is necessary to follow the technology:

1. Choose a site on a hill, which will be well lit by the sun.
2. It is better to give preference to those lands on which tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes or legumes grew in the previous season.
3. Onions love light soils, so it is recommended to add sand or humus to the ground.
4. After fertilizing, the soil is dug up at the site, weed roots and other debris are removed, and leveled with a rake.
5. At a distance of 20 cm, parallel grooves are made, the depth of which should be about 2,5 cm.
6. Nigella seeds are best sown in a thicker layer, because not all of them will germinate (in the spring it will be possible to thin out onion crops).
7. Then the black onion is sprinkled with 1,5 cm of dry earth and watered.
8. In order not to form a crust from the soil, the beds with chernushka should be mulched with peat, leafy soil or sawdust. Mulch will additionally protect the onions from freezing and washing out during the snowmelt period.

Sowing onions is over, now it remains to wait for frost and the first snow. As soon as snow appears on the site, it must be collected and covered with onion beds for additional insulation.

Caring for black onion shoots

After the snow on the beds with chernushka melts, the onions need to be mulched, otherwise the bare beds will freeze during the return frosts. When the danger of freezing has passed, the mulch is carefully raked off, the onion seedlings are inspected, if necessary, thinned out.

Spring onion care is as follows:

• when the first shoots appear, the nigella should be fed with superphosphate – at the rate of 40 g of the drug per square meter of land or with urea – about 10 g per meter;
• twice a week, tender shoots should be carefully watered if the weather is dry and warm;
• be sure to regularly weed the beds and remove weeds, because the young onion is still very weak;
• if a crust forms on the surface of the soil, it must be loosened;
• immediately after the emergence of seedlings, the nigella is thinned out so that the distance between plants is no more than two centimeters.

The distance between adjacent plants should be approximately 6 cm. However, repeated thinning is not required to obtain onion sets, because in this case just the smallest heads are valued.

Results

Planting black onions before winter is a painstaking task, but giving good results. Probably, this method is not suitable for summer residents or those who have little free time – it is more convenient for such gardeners to purchase ready-made sets. But for those who devote themselves entirely to the household, growing black onions can be a source of additional income, because sets are not cheap.