It's time to choose your onion!
In Orange County, the first day of winter
was the ideal date to plant onion seedlings. Dixondale Farms, the nation's number one supplier of onion seedlings, has decided to move that date a few weeks toward spring. Perhaps it's global warming, or perhaps their seedlings are too big, but I'm pretty sure that the new date is a response to excessive bolting (flowering) seen last spring.
Onion bulbs are not good for storage if the plant blooms. Onion plants bloom if they grow too big by a certain date.
Our new planting date will be the second weekend of January. It actually may be a bit earlier, but the suppliers take 2 weeks off for the holidays.
Here's a picture of some of the larger onions that I grew and still have. The largest are about 6 inches across. Last winter I planted about 60 onion seedlings in 1-gallon containers filled with a mix of 50% ACID MIX : 50% sand. I placed them around all the other plants growing in my yard and with a lot of water and fertilizer harvested an impressive crop by summer. With only about 10 left in my garage, I will plant more this winter to stretch the harvest.
Here are your choices:
Candy TOP CHOICE! Yellow globe up to 6 inches across. Sweet, mild flesh. Noted for its strong roots, disease resistance and uniformly large bulbs. Candy is a perennial award winner at county and state fairs across the country. Stores 3 months.
Red Candy Apple BEST RED, MOST BEAUTIFUL ONION. Flattened globe about 3 inches across. Sweetest red, but more pungent than yellow or white varieties. Stores 2 months. Red Candy Apple is being marketed as the Red Vidalia from Georgia.
Super Star White globe up to 4 inches across. This sweet hybrid is the only white onion to win the All-American Selection award. Noted for its strong foliage. Stores 2 months.
Texas Early White NEW! White globe up to 5 inches across. Sweet flesh. Noted for the uniformity of the crop, bulb symmetry, bolt resistance and disease resistance. Winner of the 2012 DGA Green Thumb award. Stores 2 months.
Texas Super Sweet Yellow globe up to 6 inches across. Famous for the raw flavor of its sweet, mild flesh. Developed by Texas A&M. Stores 3 months.
White Bermuda White and quite flat up to 4 inches across. This sweet onion stores 2 months. White Bermuda is the heirloom that was brought to Texas from the Canary Islands and established the onion as a major crop in the U.S.
Yellow Granex Yellow semi-flat globe up to 5 inches across. This is a hybrid between
Texas Super Sweet and
Bermuda and is the sweetest of all. It is grown and sold as
Vidalia onion in Georgia,
Maui onion in Hawaii and
Noonday onion in Texas. Stores 1 month.
Red Creole Red globe up to 4 inches across. This slightly pungent, spicy onion is perfect for Cajun recipes. This is the best storage onion grown in the southern U.S. and will store for up to 7 months.
The seedlings (pictured above) are grown in the ground on a farm in Texas. At the appropriate size and age they are pulled and placed in bunches of about 60 plants and shipped to us at the start of winter. Onion seedlings are pretty rugged and will keep viable for many weeks in a cool, dry location with good air circulation.
The ideal date for planting in Orange County is sometime in early January.
Situate in as much sun as possible in soil with excellent drainage. The seedlings are spaced 4 inches apart at planting. A bunch of 60 will plant a 20 foot row. For details see the planting and care guide at
www.dixondalefarms.com/onionguide TO ORDER ONION SEEDLINGS
Each bunch of approximately 60 seedlings will be of a single variety and cost $5. The $5 includes handling and there is no tax. You can order these when you visit us at our farmer's market locations or mail us a check for the total amount.
If sending a check, please indicate the number of bunches of each variety you desire. Checks should be made out to Laguna Hills Nursery and sent to my home address listed at the bottom of this newsletter.
We must receive payment no later than December 31, 2011.
Onion seedlings will be shipped out of Texas on January 9th and available later that week for pick up from my home (most likely from January 13th on) or our farmer's market locations the weekend of January 14-15 and 21-22. Please indicate how you would like to receive your seedlings.
The Best Poinsettia Plants
Poinsettias, unfortunately, are a florist plant. Even though they are woody shrubs capable of living for decades, they are usually discarded after the holidays. That said, why take great efforts to grow them? Unfortunately, the majority of Poinsettias being sold are grown without loving care, but that's not my style.
This is Jan Groot standing amongst perfect Poinsettia plants. He started growing Poinsettias over 30 years ago. My wife Nancy, worked for Mr. Groot before we ever met. In fact, she helped Jan train his son (Dana) when he entered the family business. Today Dana is the head grower and the experience of two generations shows in the product. You won't find a better Poinsettia anywhere else.
These plants look great but will be even better looking with larger bracts when they are shipped in three weeks. The workers constantly shift and rearrange the plants to maximize sun exposure and air circulation.
I'm holding a 4" Poinsettia (4" refers to the container size) that is nicer than the 6" plants that most stores will be selling. 
Here's an example of their largest 6". Notice how small the container looks. Each flower bract is over 12" across. The entire plant is about 2' by 2'! This 4-stem, 4-bloom plant is $20 when ordered (and pre-paid). After seeing the products with our own eyes, we've altered the available sizes and prices somewhat.
6" 4-stem, 4-bloom $20
6" 3-stem, 3-bloom $15
6" heavily branched $12
4" 3-stem, 3-bloom $7
2" 1-stem, 1-bloom $4
The 6" heavily branched ($12) size is quite impressive with about 9 flowers on a plant that's about 20" across. This is our top seller.
We'll have samples of all sizes at our farmer's market locations this weekend. Plants that are ordered will be available for pickup the first weekend in December, unless an alternate date is desired.
