Sweet Onions
by Barb Henny
On summer evenings our family grills supper on the patio. Jake, dressed in his bright pink Bermuda shorts, flips hamburgers on the hot charcoal. While I slice onions to top the meat, it occurs to me that sweet onions have a Bermuda history, too.
Yellow Bermuda, White Bermuda and Crystal Wax onion seeds were sent from the Bermuda Agricultural Research Station to Texas A&M University in 1898. University breeders crossed those with 'Spanish Babosa' varieties. After several generations, this cross-breeding gave rise to the 'Texas Granex' onions that I planted last fall, nurtured and am about to eat.
Start seeds throughout the fall in central Florida. Photo by Barb Henny
Every year I start seeds of 'Texas Granex' onions at Labor Day. I feel a 4-inch pot with good quality potting mix and pre-moisten it. I sprinkle onion seeds onto the soil surface, cover with a little more potting mix and gently water. Onions germinate in 7 to 10 days, depending on temperature. To extend my harvests, I start seeds like this again on Columbus Day (early October), Veterans Day (early November) and Thanksgiving (late November). These are school and office holidays, so the whole family can participate in onion farming.
When the seedlings are large enough to handled, out to the garden they go for transplanting into a bed amended with organic matter. Sweet onions can tolerate light frosts. I space 4 inches between transplants and 12 inches between rows. During their first week in the garden, they get watered one time with dilute liquid fertilizer (one tablespoon of 20-20-20 per 5 gallon bucket); after that they get side-dressed with granular 8-4-8 about once a month.
Sweet onions can be grown in containers, too, if your garden is on a sunny balcony. Pot 3 transplants into an 8-inch pot for bulb development ... or plant all the seedlings together and mow them like grass when you want onion greens to add to a salad.
Americans each eat 21.4 pounds of onions yearly. Onion popularity is piggy-backing with tomatoes. Onions are flavorings in spaghetti sauces, pizza sauces, salsas and Asian cuisines. Sweet onions lack the high sulfur content of standard onions and offer a less pungent flavor, but sweet onions also lack the papery skin of standard onions, so their shelf life is shorter.
Sweet onions are especially delicious on sandwiches. Photo by Barb Henny
Sweet onions are bulbs in the Amaryllis Family. They bloom in late spring. I find the white globe of miniature Amaryllis-like flowers attractive, and I enjoy watching bees work the multiple blossoms.
The Hastings Research Center of the University of Florida had a sweet onion breeding program. 'St. Augustine Sweets' were developed and trademarked in 1994. Much of the research focused on post-harvest shelf life.
University of Florida research says sweet onions should be harvested when the tops fall over and the crop should NOT be left to cure in the field. Too much humidity from dew and the moisture from rain favors rot organisms. Ideal conditions for curing are in a shady, covered location between 75° and 95°, spread on racks in a single layer and with a fan to circulate the air.
Gently dig them when the tops fall. Photo by Barb Henny
My carport is shady and always has a nice breeze, so I dig my sweet onions in late spring, handle the bulbs very gently to avoid bruising and store my crop there. We grow 200 to 250 onions per year; about 100 per person, in staggered plantings through the fall season and staggered harvests in the spring. If your crop is smaller, you may be able to simply clean and refrigerate the bulbs in a plastic bag. They will generally keep a month to 6 weeks in the fridge. I can dry them and store them in the carport for about 6 weeks.
How did plant breeders work with such tiny flowers? Photo by Barb Henny
In addition to Texas Granos and St. Augustine Sweets, Vidalia Sweet Onions are a $50 million a year industry in Georgia. They celebrate with a parade, musical concerts and the crowning of a Sweet Onion Queen yearly at the harvest time in late March or early April.
Tonight, our hamburgers are hot off the grill, topped with sweet sliced onions and we are biting into another delicious summer dinner. I am glad to see that Jake has covered his lap with a napkin to keep juicy drips off his Bermuda shorts.
Barb Henny uses 2 to 3 homegrown sweet onions every day for cooking or salads or pickling.
© 2014 Barb Henny. Originally published in Florida Gardening, Jun / Jul 2014. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Onions in Florida
Onions are sensitive to daylight length and are broken down into short-day and long-day species. Long-day onions do not normally form bulbs here in Florida as our days never get as long as summer days up north. The onion sets that are commonly sold in the spring are long-day onions and are grown here as “scallions.” All grano and granex species are short-day onions.