Onion "Alice"

A variety for growing from seed. The flesh is white to yellowish. The variety is adaptable, resistant to mechanical damage and highly yielding in all growing areas.
Bulbs mature uniformly and require a well-timed harvest. It has a very good shelf life.
A medium early, almost round shaped variety. It is grown from direct sowing or from seedlings. The flesh has a good, slightly sharp flavour. It is well storable. If having skirts firm enough can be harvested mechanically.
Variety value: high productivity, product uniformity, good keeping quality.

* The best predecessors for onions are crops that have been generously fertilized with organic and mineral fertilizers. These are: cucumbers, zucchini, squash, peas, tomatoes, early potatoes, early cabbage. The area should be light, not shaded.
If the soil is acidic, it is limed. It is better to apply lime 1-2 years before planting onions or in the fall. On moderately acidic soils, 200-300 g of lime is added, on sandy loam soils by mechanical composition. On medium loamy soils - 400-500 g per 1 sq. m. Lime fertilizers are evenly scattered before digging and mixed well with the soil.
It is not recommended to apply lime together with manure or mineral fertilizers, since this increases nitrogen losses and reduces the availability of phosphorus compounds to plants. Wood ash can also be used to neutralize soil acidity, but it should be added 2-3 times more than lime. In the spring, before digging the soil, add 5-7 kg of compost or rotted manure, 60-80 g per 1 sq. m of nitrophoska and 1 glass of ash. After digging, rake the soil and form a low bed (10-15 cm) no more than 1 m wide.

Hibernal onion.

Onion seeds have a dense leathery shell that does not allow water to pass through well and, as a rule, they have a low germination rate in field conditions. Therefore, before sowing, they must be soaked for 1-2 days (and before soaking, the seeds must be disinfected in hot water). First, keep them in cold water for 4 hours, then transfer them to hot water (+48..+50°C) for 10 minutes and cool immediately after warming up. Soak the seeds at a temperature of +20..+25°C. Change the water 2-3 times. Sow the seeds in rows at a distance of 10-15 cm. Having marked the rows, make furrows 2-3 cm deep. To spread the seeds more evenly, dust them with chalk, then the white seeds will be clearly visible against the dark background of the soil. Then cover the top with peat or humus, a layer of 1-1.5 cm. After sowing, it is advisable to cover the bed with old polyethylene film, under which a favorable water and air regime is formed. It should be remembered that shoots appear on the 7-8th day when soaking seeds. Do not forget to remove the cover in time.
In the initial period of onion growth, crops can be watered once a week, thoroughly soaking the soil layer up to 20 cm, and with the formation of bulbs, the intervals between waterings can be reduced to 4-5 days, the amount of irrigation water is also reduced by a third. From mid-July, approximately 25-30 days before harvesting, watering is stopped even in dry weather. In this case, there is a more complete outflow of nutrients into the bulbs, they ripen faster and are stored better in the future.
At the beginning of the development of the onion plant, nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are especially needed. In the phase of 2-3 true leaves, feed the onion with an infusion of cow dung (mullein) - 1:10 or bird droppings - 1:20 and add 10-15 g of urea or ammonium nitrate. 10 liters of infusion are used per 1-1.5 sq. m of sowing. In the absence of manure, nitrophoska can be used - 20-25 g per 1 sq. m. In the second half of the growing season, nitrogen is excluded from top dressing.
Around the beginning of July, you should feed the onion with superphosphate - 30-40 g and potassium sulfate - 20 g per 10 liters of water.
After top dressing and watering, loosen the soil to a depth of 2-4 cm to prevent crust formation. In August, as soon as the feather begins to lodge, the sets are pulled out. You cannot trample or bend the feather before harvesting in order to speed up ripening, because such onions do not store well. You cannot be late with harvesting, because in wet weather the onion sets may start secondary growth. If the summer is rainy, the onion sets are harvested at the end of July, without waiting for the leaves to lodge, but with a formed bulb. Over the course of 15-20 days, the onion sets are thoroughly dried, laid out in a thin layer and periodically stirred. Dry in dry weather in the air, and in rainy weather - in a well-ventilated room. When drying the onion sets with leaves, the nutrients from them gradually pass into the bulb and it ripens. During this time, the neck will become thin. The bulbs will "put on" dry scales. Dried leaves are rubbed off with your hands. The dried sets are sorted, sorted by size and stored.
The standard sets for most varieties are 1.5-2.5 cm. They are stored at room temperature at a temperature of +18 ... +25 °C in containers that provide good ventilation and free access of air - boxes, baskets, canvas bags, etc. The layer of filling is no more than 25 cm, so that the onions do not sweat and rot. Onions stored in such conditions, as a rule, do not bolt after planting. Small sets of 1-1.5 cm in size dry out almost completely during storage, so they are often planted in October before winter.
Harvesting onions.
20 days before harvesting onions, watering is stopped, but you need to make sure that the soil does not dry out too much. If the onion ripening is delayed (the feather is green and the bulb has not put on a yellow shirt), then you need to speed up the ripening of the onion. To do this, you need to rake the soil away from the bulbs, trim the root system to a depth of 5 cm below the bottom, after which the leaves will begin to dry faster, turn yellow, and the bulb will ripen faster. Harvest the onions together with the leaves for quick ripening of the bulbs. Dry for 10 days on the site. In damp weather, dry for 12 days in a ventilated room, additionally warm it up near heating devices for two days. After this, it can be stored. Cut off the onion, leaving a neck of 3-4 cm. The optimal temperature for storage is +1..+3°C.