Onion Planting

A few weeks ago, before there was too much rain, in between snows and on a day that was both calm (low wind) and not too warm, Ryan went out to the field and very carefully laid plastic.  Many times you will hear us refer to this as “mulch” or “plastic mulch.”  The main idea of using plastic mulch is to suppress weeds and conserve water.  What you don’t see in this picture is the drip irrigation that is underneath the mulch.

Then one morning last week, when the weather was not yet warm Ryan and I went out to the field to punch holes in the plastic.  Each plant needs a slit or hole to grow in so we punch the holes before planting.

Once the holes were punched, the crew showed up for the day.  Much of our crew for this year’s onion planting was new to Pekarek’s Produce, so we did a bit of introduction to the farm, to onions and then we got right after it and got to planting.

It didn’t take long to fill up the first row of onions.  We planted 5 varieties of sweet onions Highlander, Candy, 1015Y, Red Zepplin and Red River.  If you’ve never had one of these onions, especially from Pekarek’s Produce, you’ve never had a REAL onion.  Every one of these varieties is super sweet.  Unfortunately, every year we’ve grown onions, the poor babies seem to have a rough life – they either get hailed, flooded, or pelted with clay when the winds blow.  We hope for an easy year for these guys.

While some people will seed onions, we transplant onions that we get from another grower in sets and cases.  These were some of the best looking onions we’ve planted in years.

We had a great crew working with us to transplant onions this year. We are really looking forward to a fun growing season with these folks!

They don’t look super happy yet, but there is a little bit of instant gratification when transplanting onions.  Unlike seeding plants, when you transplant you instantly have something alive and growing in the soil.

If you’ve never followed our blog, you will know that we don’t take too many group photos, so here’s one of the few you may see.  Happy Onion Planting from Pekarek’s Produce!