Raising onions and newspaper mulch

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My G'pa taught me to break over onion greens when they start forming seed pods for dry onions. Does anyone else do this? Also does anyone mulch with newspaper? Do you use only black and white print? Do you put newspaper in your compost pile? Thanks for your answers.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), May 10, 2000

Answers

Cindy, here at least my onions try to set seed early. So I snap out the flower stalks. I don't break the leaves until early fall when I want the onions to dry down.

Newspaper makes great mulch, but it is too much of a hassle for me since wind is such a problem. Instead I use compost, sawdust and bark. I bed the gerbils (of course I have some) with newspapers and then that shredded paper goes out to the chicken coop for everybody to pick through and from there to the garden or compost heap. If you want to compost it straight, tear it up so it doesn't turn into a big soggy blob.

As I understand it, lead has been sharply reduced or eliminated from newspapers. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), May 10, 2000.


Some urban myths here! Cut off the flower heads. Otherwise, the plant puts it's energy into producing seed. DO NOT bend over the "leaves". This only puts the plant into premature curing, and you wind up with a smaller onion. Even frost will not hurt the bulb. Let the tops die back naturally for best production. GL!

-- Brad (homefixer@mix-net.net), May 10, 2000.

I let some of my onions overwinter this year because I am practicing with learning to be a seed saver. They are just starting to put out the seed pods. I will be collecting them when they are ready. I'm amazed at how bigs the onions have grown. On the newspaper mulch issue, I used it last year around my tomato plants. I spread out several layers, probably about seven or eight sheets thick, and overlapping put them up close to each plant. I watered the newspapers after I laid a few down and then I quickly dropped grass clippings on top of them to keep the wind from blowing them away. The grass clippings were about four to six inches thick. This worked well all summer. When fall came and we pulled up the tomator plants, I just tilled in the grass clippings and the newspaper. This spring there is no trace of the newspapers at all. Hope this helps.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), May 16, 2000.

I think Brad is right, it's a myth about breaking off the tops, but I did try it once. No difference in production. I used newspapers last year as mulch, and it works fine, but it is so windy here that I ended up having to wet the thick sheets of newspaper in a 5 gallon bucket. I put the papers in, filled the bucket with water and let it saturate them, then lifed out each section and laid them down around plants. As long as we kept them watered, they stayed in place fine. We get very little moisture or snowfall here in the winter, so the newspaper didn't decompose as well as I had hoped. After tilling a couple times, there are still lots of small pieces of paper visable, but I'm sure over this summer all will be gone. Black plastic is not a viable option here, due to the wind, either. I'm trying one strip for my sweet potatoes, but the wind catches in even the smallest slit, where the potato slips are planted, and rips it up. Good luck, and let us know how it worked for you. Jan

-- Jan B (Janice12@aol.com), May 17, 2000.

They shouldn't all get seed tops.The ones that do, are usually a lot smaller and they don't store as well.When I see one with a seed top,I just pull it up and use it so the ones that will get big and store well have more room to grow.It is best to select for the onions that don't set seed until the second year.When you buy onion sets,try not to get any bigger around than a nickel.Those are the ones that will be making seed heads.The little sets make bigger,better onions. Our onion tops fall down by themselves as they get mature,they don't have to be knocked down.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@transport.com), May 17, 2000.


Newspaper (and cereal boxes, and junk mail, and the kids school work. . .) is definitely part of my mulching routine. Today I went to the dump and retrieved several armloads from the recycling area. I put them in a a cardboard box out in the garden and hope for rain. That makes them wet, heavy, and easy to put where I want them. I put them in my paths or where I want to smother persistent weeds. Then I promptly cover them with wood chips, saw dust, leaves or grass clippings. The covered areas stay weed free the entire summer and the ground stays moist. By the next spring they are about 1/2 decayed and there is an enormous worm population under the covered areas. Then all I have to do is figure out whether to make them into paths again, or use the weed free area to grow something!

-- Brenda (bmontanye@hotmail.com), May 20, 2000.

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