How To Grow Onions and Radishes

 To be frank, onions and radishes have nothing in common besides being edible, growing under the ground and enjoying cool weather. However, they are the last two Spring vegetables I'm writing about and are easy enough I didn't feel they needed separate posts. If you enjoy radishes and onions then rejoice! because they are both relatively easy to grow. 

Radishes are a great veggie for beginners. You can buy seeds for cheap, toss them on some soft soil and water. In 4-5 weeks, you'll have radishes to eat. Honestly, the only down side is that a lot of people don't like them. I enjoy them grated up in a salad so I'll grow a few but not too many. They are great succession crops, you can just toss out a few more seeds every few weeks and have a steady supply of radishes all spring and again in the fall. Here in York County, I'll start planting them towards the end of March and again in Mid August. 

Onions are a little more tricky. Growing onions from seeds takes a LONG time. You have to be willing to start them indoors and now that it's the end of February, it's really too late for that. I always buy onion sets. These are little baby onions that you can plant out in mid March and let them grow up. Onion sets have the advantage of being dirt cheap. You can find them at any garden center or hardware store. White and purple onions are best for fresh eating. I always get yellow onion sets because they are the best for storage. 

Plant onions out as soon as the ground is workable. I plant mine around St. Patricks Day. Onions NEED full sun. If you skimp on the sunlight, you will get small onions. Seriously, give them at least 8 hours of sunlight. They also need rich, well drained soil. I will sprinkle some general purpose fertilizer over the ground after I've planted the sets. Later around Memorial Day, I give them another feeding. When the tops start falling over, it's a sign the onions are ready to harvest. For me, that's usually around the 4th of July. (Yes, it's typical for gardeners to do things around holidays. ) If you leave them in the ground for too long they will start to rot. 

If you grow a lot of onions and want to store them, you'll need to cure them. You can read about that here. 

The only pest I've ever had for radishes are rabbits. They can be easily deterred by chicken wire fencing. I've never had any pests on onions. The biggest problem I have with those is root rot from too much rain. 

You can totally grow your own radishes and onions. Do you have any favorite tips? Be sure to write about them below.