In winter, when there is very little sunlight and there are not enough fresh herbs and vegetables, a good help is the forcing of onions. There are a lot of technologies, most of them are available to almost anyone.
I am sure that almost everyone in this volume grew onion greens in the winter. I want to share an interesting way to harvest with the original boxes. I bought them for the occasion in one of the hardware stores, I really liked them, so I’ll tell you about them.
The box size is 40 x 60 cm (1.3×2 ft). A special feature is its design. In the lower part there are small spikes on which you can plant an onion.
There are limiters that do not allow you to do this very deeply, so that the head of the onion does not touch the bottom, but is located about 1-1.5 cm (0.4-0.6 in) above it. At the bottom, pour water so that the lower parts of the bulbs are slightly moistened.
There are two advantages of such a box. First, in such a box, the onion heads are securely fixed, they do not float, do not fall. Secondly, the bulb is more quickly saturated with water, as it turns out to be punctured. However, it does not rot, as only the roots grow in the water.
As experience has shown, minor damage caused by the spikes of the box did not have any negative impact. As usual, prepare the onion head before planting-cut off the top and sprinkle the cut with ash.
The box has small holes in the ends, so that there is ventilation, the water does not stagnate. Such a container can be well suited not only for simple gardeners, but also for those who grow onions for sale.
A story about this method of forcing onions would be inconclusive and incomplete without demonstrating the results. Therefore, further we will talk about them.
Results
Onions were planted in boxes with thorns. It was grown only on water, no additives were used. At the same time, the bulbs were planted in two boxes and in one ordinary (mobile bed), where they were covered with earth. You can see the result in the photo below.
The central box is the one containing the earth. The repeated growth of onions in it is much lower. If you pull the head out of this mobile bed, you can see that it has a good root system built up, while they are not in a hurry to give greens.
If you look at the bulb from the box with thorns, you can see that the roots are quite long, but they do not grow as tightly as the head planted on the beds in an ordinary plastic box. However, at the same time, there was a good increase in green space.
After the greens have grown enough, I take out the onion, and put another one in its place. The result is a conveyor belt that continuously delivers fresh vitamins to your table.
In winter, you can drive out the onions in the room or on the cool closed terrace. And it should be noted that this culture is unpretentious, it develops well with a winter lack of lighting. In the spring, such boxes are conveniently and appropriately placed in a greenhouse to grow onions there until the main crop is planted.
Unfortunately, I can not say exactly where you can buy such boxes, as they were bought, you can say, by accident. However, I hope that my experience will be useful to you, and you will pay attention to such a convenient device for forcing onions the next time you visit a store that sells household or garden goods.