| Affiliations |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ideal Onion Plant Size
|
February 2010
|
|
|
Dear Fellow Gardener,
Every year, several customers ask that we
ship them large plants. Well, here are my
thoughts on onion plant size.
The optimum thickness of the onion plant at the
time of transplanting is about that of a
pencil, which usually means that it has four
leaves. If an onion plant has more than 5
leaves, it's more prone to go to seed than
the smaller plant. When we ship the plants,
they have a certain amount of carbohydrates
stored in the bulb. Naturally, the larger the
bulb on the plant, the more carbohydrates the
plant possesses.
Your job is to transplant the bulb, have it
establish a root system, and start generating
more carbohydrates before it uses up all it
has stored in the bulb -- a simple explanation
for a critical period in the life of your
onion. It takes about two weeks for the onion
to fully establish a root system, and then it
should start shooting out new leaves once
every two weeks or so. So if a plant has one
or two more leaves, it has a chance to have
one or two more rings when harvested (one
leaf equals one ring). That comes out to
about 1/2-1 inch in size.
As our regular customers know, some onion
plants in a bundle are smaller than others.
You see, not all the seeds germinate the
first time we water them, so there can be a
slight difference in size of the plants even
within the same bundle. We can't afford to
cull the small plants out, but we try to ship
all the plants as close to the optimum size
as possible. Some folks plant the smaller
plants in a certain area, and use them as
spring green onions early in the season. What
a great idea!
Wishing you bigger onions,
Bruce "Onionman" Frasier
|
|
Onion of the Month
Yellow Granex
The Yellow Granex is one of the true classics
of the onion world. A native of Vidalia,
Georgia, this yellow, semi-flat, sweet hybrid
can reach five inches in diameter, and takes
100 days to grow to harvest size. It's
storable for approximately one month.
Here's what our customer Delwin Finch has to
say about this past year's Yellow Granex harvest:
Another great year! This is my second
year planting Yellow Granex onions from
Dixondale, and they are even better than last
year! The sets arrived fresh and ready to go.
I used the recommended fertilizer/fungicide
combination from Dixondale and this increased
my yield size tremendously. I now have onions
the size of softballs. I highly recommend
Dixondale Farms!
Learn More
|
|
From Our Friends
Every year, Bradley Hawthorne of Wichita,
Kansas does something really special with our
products: he donates his additional onions to
the local food bank. This past year he
donated 448 pounds of onions! We think this
is a wonderful way to share your harvest with
those in need.
Keep the photos and letters coming, folks,
and thanks for being such loyal customers!
We love hearing from you! Send us
your
favorite "onion photo" and we'll try to
include it in a
future newsletter, our next catalog or our
online Photo Album. Click
here for details on how to
submit your photos.
|
|
|
Around the Farm
As most people know, the Deep South
experienced some unusually cold temperatures
during the first two weeks of January. We got
down to 18º on the morning of January 9. In
preparation for this cold snap, we watered
every single field in just four days. Our
farm workers did an incredible job of wetting
the plants enough to insulate them from these
extreme temperatures.
We've had a few mornings of frost the past
few weeks, but no worries -- this tends to
toughen the plants so they can stand colder
temperatures. The worst freeze we ever had
was one where it was 70º on New Year's Eve
day, and 10º the next morning. What made it
worse was that Notre Dame beat Texas that day
in the Cotton Bowl!
|
|
|
Cooking With Onions
Shrimp Creole
- 1 chopped medium onion
- 6-8 chopped green onions
- 1 cup of chopped celery
- 1 thinly-sliced green bell pepper
- 1 14.5 ounce can of whole, undrained
tomatoes
- 6 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 3 pounds of peeled, raw shrimp
- 1 pinch of crumbled thyme leaves
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 dash of cayenne pepper
- 2 chopped garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
- 4-6 cups of hot, cooked rice
After heating the oil in a heavy skillet,
sauté all the vegetables except the tomatoes
with the thyme, bay, garlic, and pepper until
they're barely tender. After mixing in the
tomato paste and tomatoes, let the mixture
simmer for 15 minutes. Then add the shrimp,
and simmer for an additional 10 minutes.
Serve the mix over hot rice.
Serves 6 to 8.
Onions can enhance so many dishes, from
simple
salads to complex entrees; and they can also be
consumed raw, fried, sautéed or baked. We
periodically receive sumptuous recipe
suggestions
from our employees and from you, our customers.
We want to share one with you each month, so
that
you can take full advantage of the fruits of
your labor! If
you have one you would like us to print,
please email it
to us at
customerservice@dixondalefarms.com.
|
|
|
Q&A: Cold Weather Damage
Q. How do I know if my plants suffered
damage from the cold?
A. Onion plants have a certain amount
of carbohydrates stored up in the bulb.
During extreme cold weather, if the plant is
able to generate more carbohydrates before it
uses up all the carbohydrates it has stored
away, then it will live. It usually takes
7-10 days after it warms up before you'll
know for sure that it's going to die. The top
first turns white, and then completely falls
over.
Watering right before a freeze is usually
helpful, since the moist dirt around the bulb
tends to insulate it somewhat. Freezes
generally cause the ground to dry out
significantly, so watering right after a
freeze is beneficial as well. After about a
week, you can take out one of the plants and
see if there's a new leaf starting to form in
the center of the bulb. If there is, that
means the plant will live.
|
|
|
Fun Onion Facts
Back before onion varieties acquired
standardized names, those who wanted to be
familiar with onions from one place to
another really had to know their onions. By
the 1920s, the term "knows his onions" had
been generalized to mean that someone had a
thorough knowledge of a subject. It was first
recorded in print in the March 1922 issue of
Harper's Bazaar, and is still occasionally
used in speech, primarily in the southern
U.S. and Britain.
|
|
|
Send Us Your Product Reviews!
In addition to sending us recipes and photos
of your
onions, we encourage you to give us
feedback on our products via the Product
Review options on the Web site. You'll find
a "write your own review" link on every
product page. Don't be shy -- we need
your opinions!
|
|
|
About Dixondale Farms
As the largest and oldest onion plant farm in
the U.S.,
Dixondale Farms offers a wide selection of
top-quality,
disease-free, ready-to-plant onion plants.
To see our
complete product line, request a catalog, or for
growing tips and cultural information, visit our
Web site by clicking
here.
Whether you're planting one bunch or
thousands of
acres, we're committed to your success. If
you have
either questions or suggestions, we'd love to
hear
from you. You can reach us from 8:00 AM to
5:00 PM
Central
Time at 877-367-1015, or
e-mail us any time
at
customerservice@dixondalefarms.com.
|
|
