Useful tips for the gardener: how to get a rich harvest of onion sets, protect it from shooting, diseases and pests

Almost all summer residents and gardeners grow onions, but not everyone manages to get large, healthy heads of this vegetable.

When planting in spring, the ground should warm up to at least +10 degrees. Otherwise, cold ground and frost can provoke bow shooting.

Preparatory stage before planting: selection

Before you plant the onion in the garden, you need to sort it out. First of all, rotten and damaged bulbs should be selected. The heads should be firm, not soft.

Heat treatment

Onions can be processed in hot water at a temperature of + 48 + -50 degrees for 30 minutes. After that, the bulbs must be immersed in cold water at the same time. This method will help you avoid shooting the bow. He will temper him to some extent.

Disinfection and pest control

You need to hold the onion for 2-3 hours in a warm saline solution (at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. per 1 liter of water), which will serve as a good prevention against various pests. After that, the planting material must be washed.

Hot water treatment will not cure fungal diseases, so you need to use the following method. Before that, a saturated strong solution of potassium permanganate should be made, in which the heads should be for 2 hours.

Then you need to start planting the onion.

Preparing the beds for onions

Onions love nutritious, fertile soil. It grows well on loam and sandy loam soil. It is important that it is loose.

It is best to prepare a garden bed in the fall: add ash, mineral fertilizers, organic matter in the form of rotted manure and compost for digging.

If you decide to prepare a garden bed in the spring, then you should add 1 sq. meter 20 grams of ammonium nitrate, half a glass of wood ash.

Then the soil needs to be shed with water, after a week the soil will settle down a little and the bulbs can be planted.

How to plant onion sets

In the garden, it is necessary to make grooves 5-6 cm deep. The row spacing should be 20-25 cm. There should be no thickened landings.

All furrows must be shed with water. Then you need to wait until it is absorbed. Next, you should sprinkle the bottom of each furrow with ash, which will serve as excellent nutrition and protection from pests. Also, on top of the ash, the grooves can be sprinkled with mustard cake (or tobacco dust), which will protect the planting from onion flies.

Then you need to plant the onion heads at a distance (in a row) of 10 cm from each other. It is required to fill the planting with your hand and tamp it a little with your palms. The onion neck should be below 1.5-2 cm below the soil.

After that, the bed must be carefully shed and covered with a covering material, since there may still be frosts in May, and this will retain moisture in the soil.

As soon as the first shoots appear in the form of green feathers, the agrofibre should be removed immediately.

Onions need to be fed at least 2-3 times per season. Watering should be stopped 3-4 weeks before harvest.