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A pile of onions with brown and green tops.

3 Ways to Grow Great Onions from Seed

Onions grown from bulbs or transplants are a good way to get started, but growing your onions from seed opens up a world of diversity in tastes, shapes, sizes, and colors. Seed-grown onions are just better all around!

by Stephen Scott

A group of green peppers sitting on top of grass.

Vegetables

Growing Peppers 101

We look at the basics of growing both sweet and hot peppers in your home garden and some mistakes to avoid and myths to be aware of. Armed with a little knowledge, you’ll be much more successful this season!

by Stephen Scott

Vegetables

3 Ways to Grow Great Onions from Seed

by Stephen Scott

Vegetables

Growing Peppers 101

by Stephen Scott

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Vegetables

3 Ways to Grow Great Onions from Seed

Why Grow Onions from Seed?

Many gardeners begin growing their onions from transplants or bulbs bought at their local garden center. They are convenient, easy to grow and a great way to learn about growing delicious onions in your garden, but they have some drawbacks. Like tomatoes and peppers, the selection is limited to what the grower chooses and freshness isn’t always a given.

Growing onions from seed opens up a world of diversity in shapes, sizes, flavors, and colors to grow. Starting from seed typically rewards you with bigger and better quality onions, with larger harvests being a bonus from the abundance of seed in a packet.

Onions grown from seed almost always perform better than those grown from sets. They are less prone to disease, store better, and bulb up faster, especially if you have some knowledge and tips to do it right. Growing onions isn’t quite like growing other vegetables, so here’s how you can grow better this season!

Find your onion seeds here!

Types of Onions – Long Day vs Short Day vs Intermediate Day

A map of the united states with long day onions and short day onions.

Long vs Short Day Onion Zones

Which onion varieties are best for you depends on where your garden is located. There are three different types of onions and picking the right type is key to growing a great crop.

Short-day onions need 10 – 12 hours of daylight to form bulbs. They’re perfect for gardeners in the southern US where summer days are not as long throughout the growing season. Growing short-day onions in the north results in tiny bulbs that go to flower early because the bulbs stop growing once the days lengthen.

Long-day onions need at least 14 hours of daylight to form bulbs. They’re best for gardeners in the northern tier of the U.S. and Canada. Just like growing short-day onions in the north, long-day onions won’t form bulbs in the south because the days aren’t long enough to trigger bulb formation and you wind up with small bulbs or bunching onions.

A map of the united states with the name day-neutral zone.

Intermediate Day Onion Zone

Intermediate-day onions form bulbs when the daylight ranges from 12 – 14 hours long. If you live somewhere across the mid-section of the US, day-neutral or intermediate onion varieties are the best fit.

Three Ways to Grow Onions From Seed

There are three distinct ways to grow your onions from seed and the best way for you depends on your particular gardening style, equipment and available time. Onions grow best in loose, fertile soil that drains well.

1- Direct Sowing in the Garden

The simplest method is direct to sow your onion seeds directly into the garden soil. Before sowing, refer to the garden bed preparation section below. Draw a line down the middle of the bed about 1/8 – 1/4 inch deep and sow the onion seeds with about 3-inch spacing to avoid crowding. Lightly cover the seeds and dampen well. Onion seeds will tolerate a light frost.

The pros of this method are its simplicity – sow your onions once, then harvest when ready. No transplanting for you!

The cons are making sure you plant the seeds early enough for the bulbs to develop by mid to late fall. You also have to deal with weather events and being able to possibly protect the seedlings if there is hail or heavy rains. Most northern states don’t have a long enough season to support direct seeding.

The good news is experimenting is inexpensive – a packet of onion seeds will set you back a grand total of anywhere from $3.15 to $3.35, and you get about 500 seeds to work with. You’ll also invest a little bit of your time in learning what works best for your garden.

A close up of some grass growing in the dirt

Onion seedlings in tray

2- Starting in Trays

Starting your onion seeds in trays requires a small amount of equipment or conditions and some time on your part. You’ll need a tray to catch the excess moisture and either a flat with cells or individual pots such as peat pots, paper pots, or similar filled with a high-quality pre-moistened seed starting mix. If you aren’t sure which mix works well, read our Seed Starting Mix article. You can also use a container about 3 – 4 inches deep and fill it almost to the top instead of pots or flats. Used berry or take-out containers work well with holes poked in the bottom and lid. Start your seeds about 10-12 weeks before transplanting date, which is about 2-4 weeks before your last frost date.

Plant the seeds by placing 2 seeds per cell or pot and covering with about 1/8 inch of soil. If you are using the container method, scatter the seeds on top of well-moistened potting soil then cover with the 1/8 inch of additional soil. Label the containers or flats, place in the catch tray and cover with a humidity dome or lid. Place on a heat mat, heating pad, or warm area where it’s a constant 70-75Â°F. Once the seeds start sprouting – about a week – remove the humidity dome and move to a cooler area, about 60-65Â°F. Give them plenty of supplemental light with a grow light or other fixture for about 12 hours per day. Trim the tops back when they are about 5 inches tall to encourage stronger root and stalk growth.

Onions will tolerate cool spring temperatures but must be acclimated first – a process called hardening off. Start about 6 weeks before your last expected frost date (look yours up here) by giving them exposure to natural sunlight, cooler temperatures, and a less moist soil environment. Begin by placing the tray in a sheltered location outside during the day for an hour or two, increasing a little each day until they are outside from morning until night time. Onion seedlings will tolerate a light frost, so don’t worry if you get a late-season cold snap!

They are now ready for transplanting, and you should be about 2 weeks before your last expected frost date. Before transplanting, refer to the garden bed preparation section below. To transplant, remove the soil blocks or gently dump the tray out, then tease the seedlings out of the potting soil into clumps of no more than 2, placing them 3-4 inches apart next to the furrow. Stage or pre-place all of the transplants before planting them to save time and your back!

Using a dibber or other similar tool, poke a hole into the furrow about 3-4 inches deep and drop each clump in – don’t worry, this isn’t too deep! Gently firm the soil around the transplant and keep the beds well watered and weeded until the onions are well established.

The pros for this approach is you know exactly where your onions are, as you can see the green tops sticking out. You can also select the strongest seedlings to transplant, creating a better chance of a good harvest.

The cons are that seedlings will have some transplant shock and you’ll lose some – grow extra transplants to fill in the gaps. Young, tender greens are snacks for all sorts of critters in early spring, so you may need to provide some protective cover until they are more established.

3- Winter Sowing

This is perhaps the second easiest option as it takes little time on your part and almost no equipment. Winter sowing is basically cold-stratifying your onion seeds to the outside temperatures, then they sprout when conditions are right in the spring. You can plant your seeds this way anytime from early December to mid-February in most locations.

Seed sowing is similar to starting seeds in a container, except you skip the heat mats, grow lights and all of the other equipment. Start with a container that has some holes in the bottom for drainage, fill to within an inch of the top with good quality dry potting soil and sow your onion seeds across the top with a sprinkling motion, giving them about 1/4 to 1/2 inch spacing. Poke 1/4 inch holes in the lid for ventilation and put it on the container after labeling it with the date and type of onion you planted.

Now place the container in a shady, protected spot outside. It doesn’t matter if it freezes or snows – the onion seeds are acclimating to the changing conditions and will remain dormant until the conditions are right. This is why you use dry potting soil!

When the temperatures and day length are right, your onion seeds will start sprouting inside the container. As the weather starts to warm up during the day, check your seed container every couple of days for signs of sprouting. Once you see the tiny bits of green peeking out, then you’ll need to water the potting soil, keeping it slightly moist but not wet. As they grow, open the lid on warm days and close it at night, still keeping it out of direct sun. If you get a hard freeze once the seedlings have germinated, cover the container with a blanket or towel at night to protect them, but remove it next morning.

As soon as you can work your garden soil in early spring, transplant your seedlings just like if you had started them indoors. Before transplanting, refer to the garden bed preparation section below.You don’t need to harden them off because they’ve been outside all winter and are acclimated to the temperatures.

The pros to this method are the plants are used to the natural temperature and light cycles and are primed to germinate at the right time. They usually form larger bulbs more consistently as well.

The cons are remembering to check on the container that might be out of sight outside, especially when the temperatures warm up.

Growing Bed Preparation Before Sowing or Transplanting

Prepare your garden bed for either sowing or transplanting before you need it to save time, back strain and headache. The basics are the same -dig a furrow about 4 inches wide and deep, then fill it with rich, well-aged compost. It’s best to do this in the fall before the ground is too hard, but it can be done in early spring as soon as the ground can be worked.

A field of grass with brown patches on the ground.

Mulched Onions

Onion Growing Tips

Start with fresh seed and seed starting or potting soil mix each year. Onion seed germination decreases after the first year, so why chance it? Fresh mix minimizes the chance of diseases during the long germination and seedling periods.

If starting inside, bottom heat really speeds seed germination up. 70-75Â°F soil temperature can create sprouts in about a week, versus 2 or 3 weeks at cooler temperatures.

Feed only the onion roots – just underneath the onion itself. They have short, shallow roots and can’t reach far, so provide the rich, well-aged compost where they can use it best.

Onions don’t compete with weeds very well because of their slow growth and small root structures. Weeds will significantly reduce your onion harvest, but there are better ways to fight weeds than weeding.Minimize weeding by mulching heavily between seedlings after transplanting.

Water onions efficiently with a drip system or soaker hose placed right next to the plants – remember their short roots. Doing this minimizes the amount of water they need, as well as reducing available water to potential weeds.

Find your onion seeds here!

Get Started

Congratulations! You now know a lot more about how to grow delicious onions from seed and why you would want to. You’ve got several tools to use in planning your garden for onions and how to set yourself up for success this season.

As always, please let us know your thoughts, experiences, or questions in the comments below. If you like this, sharing with your circle of friends helps us help them!

by Stephen Scott

Vegetables

Growing Peppers 101

The More You Know – the Better You Grow

Growing peppers seems to come naturally for some gardeners, while others always seem to struggle. Sometimes this stems from easily-avoided mistakes or accepting certain myths or misinformation as correct.

Today we’re looking at the basics of growing peppers in your home garden and some mistakes and myths to be aware of and avoid. You might look at this as a how-not-to guide because occasionally it’s just easier showing what not to do than describing and explaining the right way. Plus, seeing other’s mistakes sometimes sinks in faster.

These are our observations from our 20+ years of gardening combined with the past 10 years of gardening questions we’ve answered.

Find Hot Peppers Here!

Sweet Peppers Over Here!

Conditions

The initial conditions you choose are critical to sprouting, transplanting and growing success, no matter what seed you are planting. Here are some things to consider as you grow your peppers this season.

A person holding tomatoes in their hand.

Chocolate Mini Bell Peppers

Starting Seeds

Pepper seed germination – even under optimum conditions – is often slow and erratic. Don’t compare your tomato seed germination with peppers and think they aren’t performing as they should.
Tomatoes can sprout in 3 – 5 days in ideal conditions, while peppers might take 14 to 21 days. This is normal, be patient, and don’t worry!
The two most common problems in pepper seed germination for home gardeners is soil that is too cool and not moist enough.
Use any readily available thermometer that will accurately read in the 60° to 100°F range and insert it an inch into the soil. If it’s 80° or above, you should have good success. Soil temperature below 75°F can delay seed germination by 3 weeks or more!
- An easy way to determine soil moisture is by touching the surface of the soil with your finger – it should be damp to slightly wet where you touched the soil, and you can feel the moisture when you rub your fingers together. If not, it’s a little too dry.
- A good rule of thumb for germinating pepper seeds is warm, moist soil – meaning 80° – 90°F – watered from above with warm water.
This will consistently give you better germination on all pepper seeds – sweet or hot. Maintain the soil temperature with heat mats or placing the seedling flats in a consistently warm area such as on top of a freezer or refrigerator. Warm water from above minimizes the cooling effect on the soil as opposed to bottom watering during sprouting. Once the seedlings have sprouted, switch to bottom watering to minimize mold and fungus issues.

A person holding an orange bell pepper in their hand.

Alma Paprika Pepper

Transplanting

Young seedlings need to be conditioned or prepared for the outside garden environment, or they will suffer greatly or die. Seedlings are tender with soft tissues, sensitive leaves, and small root systems. They aren’t ready to be plopped into the early spring garden without hardening off, sort of like a boot camp or physical conditioning program. This usually takes about 2 weeks of setting the seedlings outside for short periods and going longer as they toughen up.
The ideal transplanting day is warm soil with cloud cover and little to no breeze. Seedlings need warm and moist soil, much like they have before transplanting. Give them a drink of water immediately after transplanting to help avoid shock.
The biggest issues with transplanting are soil that is too cold, too dry (or too wet) or the seedlings are still too tender and need more hardening off. It’s better to wait a few days to a week than jump the gun, transplant too early and lose your hard work.
Peppers like to be close, but not too close. 18 inch spacing between plants is a good start – smaller plants can be planted a foot apart, while larger ones will need 18-24 inches. You want the plants to grow a good leaf canopy that shades the fruit from sunscald while not competing with each other and becoming leggy or spindly.

A close up of some red and yellow peppers

Serrano Peppers

Growing

To keep your sweet peppers sweet, don’t plant them close to your hot ones; they will readily cross-pollinate and you’ll have extremely hot sweet peppers! We learned this one summer when we had Jalapenos upwind of our bell peppers. The unexpected bite of a fiery bell shocked us; we later taste-tested and found the bell peppers were hotter than the Jalapenos.
Giving your peppers some space is the best solution – distance minimizes the chance of hot pepper pollen finding your sweet pepper’s flower, either by wind or pollinators. Seed growers isolate peppers by 1,500 feet, but if we’ve found planting sweets 50 feet or more upwind of the prevailing breeze is pretty dependable. Peppers also grow well in containers or large pots, so you can grow them well away from the garden if needed.
Peppers produce best with moderate temperatures, although they can tolerate warmer days if it cools off at night.
Much like tomatoes, the key to getting big harvests is night-time temperatures. Peppers set the most flowers – thus the most fruit – between 65° and 80°F at night. Above about 85°F the blossoms drop off, costing you precious peppers. High winds, lack of pollinators and excessive nitrogen – such as with synthetic fertilizers – also cause blossom drop.
Sustained daytime temperatures above 95°F causes the pollen to become sterile with lower harvests. Shading the peppers also reduces sunscald and the loss of immature pods from heat stress. Sunscald happens when leaves don’t protect ripening peppers from the sun and they get a sunburned appearance.
Pod drop happens when immature pepper pods drop off the plant, most often caused by high heat combined with water stress or excessive nitrogen fertilizer. Shade cloth reduces the heat, and a drip system on a timer moderates the moisture and avoids large swings that stress the plant, causing it to shed pepper pods. Consistent moisture is best for healthy growth – not just with peppers – and avoids the soil getting too dry between waterings.
A good layer of straw mulch also maintains soil moisture levels between watering. We’ve found mulch reduces the amount of time our drip system is on, by cutting down the amount of water that is lost to evaporation.
Peppers, along with most vegetables, like rich, well-balanced, and fertile soil to grow in. Too much of any one thing can be detrimental, and too much nitrogen leads to exuberant leaf and flower growth with little to no fruit set – most often seen in peppers and tomatoes. There aren’t enough other nutrients to support the fruit growth from all of those flowers.
Rotating beds where you grow peppers every year helps prevent many diseases and over-wintered bugs from attacking. Good soil fertility is the best prevention.
Blossom end rot in peppers is much the same as in tomatoes, caused mainly by a lack of available calcium in the plant as it starts setting fruit – often large amounts of fruit at the same time. It can also be caused by large fluctuations in soil moisture, such as forgetting to water or a rain after it’s gotten dry. The usual suspect – excess nitrogen – also plays a part here.
Feeding the plants with a 20% solution of milk – 2 cups of milk in 8 cups of water – with a teaspoon of molasses gives the plants a boost in calcium and much-needed sugars for fruit production. Give each plant a cup of the solution once a week until the new fruit starts setting, then twice a month during heavy production.

A person cutting up an object with a knife.

Line of Capsaicin

Harvesting and Handling

Almost all peppers go through several colors before ripening to maturity – both in color and flavor. The green stage is usually the least flavorful and sweet, but sometimes the spiciest and a bit bitter. As it ripens through yellow, orange and into red, the flavors become richer and deeper, with the sweetness developing and the heat mellowing. Try picking your peppers at all of the stages to see what you like best!
A good rule of thumb for picking is if the pepper is easily removed from the stem, it’s ready. If you have to pull or tug on the pod, it’s still too early.
This changes, of course, if you are harvesting continuously to increase the harvest – you’ll be removing slightly young peppers. In this case, it’s best to cut the peppers off the stem to avoid damaging the plant by pulling, as the stem will usually break before the stem does.
Capsaicin – the “heat” in peppers – is located on the ribs and seeds. If you look closely, you’ll see tiny yellow dots on the ribs – this is the pure form and is concentrated. If you prick one of these dots, you’ll feel it’s effects – sneezing, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes. Avoid touching it with bare skin to prevent spreading it to your face, eyes, etc.
Some otherwise sweet peppers have a hot streak on the ribs and seeds, so now you know how to handle them.
Some people are simply extremely sensitive, no matter how mild!

Red and Yellow Bell Peppers

Myths

One of the biggest myths we’ve seen is the one that the different number of lobes on a bell pepper determines it’s sex – such as “3 lobes means it’s female and sweeter, 4 lobes is male and hotter”…

First – peppers, like tomatoes, are “perfect” flowers, meaning they have both male and female organs in the same flower and can self-pollinate.
Second off – and this is common sense – if this was true, you would need to buy “male” and “female” pepper seeds for reproduction, right? After all, if 3 lobes are “female” and 4 lobes are “male”, it stands to reason they would produce the same sex seeds, thus the need for male and female seeds to be planted close to each other.
So, where have you seen “male” or “female” pepper seeds for sale? Or maybe we should capture that market share?

Another myth is that all red peppers are hot, while green peppers are sweet.

This most likely arises from people only seeing green bell peppers in the supermarket, and not realizing that they ripen into different shades of yellow, orange, or red and are still sweet.
The fallacy is easily seen with both bell peppers and JalapeÃ±os are both green on store shelves!

Your Tips?

What are your proven, never-fail tips for growing the best peppers? Share your experiences below so we can all grow better peppers!

Find Hot Peppers Here!

Sweet Peppers Over Here!

Resources to learn more

by Stephen Scott