Onion is perhaps the most popular garden crop among Russian summer residents. It is grown in almost every suburban area. Of course, in order to get a good harvest of this crop, all the required technologies should be observed when cultivating it. This also applies, of course, to such a procedure as watering onions.
General rules
According to the basic technology, onions should be watered after planting for about two months. Actually, the very frequency of soil moisture in the beds with this crop is determined depending on weather conditions. If the spring turned out to be rainy, you can not water the onions at all. During the dry season, the bed with onions is moistened at least twice a week.
Also, some summer residents are interested in whether onions need to be watered when planting. It is known that sevok is used as seed material for growing this crop. These small annual heads are buried 2-3 cm into the ground. Before you start planting them, it is not necessary to moisten the ground in the garden. You can deepen the heads in a drysoil. In this case, it will be more difficult to damage their roots. But after planting, it is necessary, of course, to fill the bed with onions with water.
Knowing whether the onion needs watering or not is very simple. Dry land under this plant should not be. During the growth of the green mass, you need to ensure that the soil in the garden always remains wet.
When to stop watering onions
Water onions when planting, so be sure. For some time (with a set of green mass and with the development of bulbs), this culture requires a lot of water. But somewhere around mid-July, most varieties of this garden plant are almost finished forming heads. During this period, they begin to accumulate all sorts of nutrients and sucrose. Therefore, in mid-July, watering onions is rarely done. If this condition is not met, the heads will grow tasteless and will be very poorly stored.
Three weeks before harvest, onion watering should be stopped even if the weather outside is dry. Otherwise, the heads may not even reach the New Year.
How to water properly
Moisturizing beds with onions, of course, you should adhere to a certain technology. Watering this crop simply from a hose is not recommended. Otherwise, you can damage the heads or even pour them out of the ground. Be sure to put a watering can on the hose. Do not make the water pressure too strong.
It is best to water onions in the morning or evening. fabricsThe feathers of this culture are rather coarse. However, getting water on them on a hot day can still cause burns. The fact is that after watering on the green parts of the onion, like any other plant, droplets of water remain. The sun's rays pass through them, like through small lenses, focusing. As a result, the tissues of the plant are very overheated and subsequently dead zones form on them.
How to water big onions
As soon as the heads reach a size of 4-5 cm in diameter, the method of moistening the onions by sprinkling can be changed to watering "under the root". The watering can from the hose during this period must be removed, and the water pressure should be tried to be a little less. Large onions are watered not over the heads, but trying to get into the aisles.
Which water to use
Growing a good crop of onions with large heads and laying is possible only in the area where there is a special outdoor storage capacity. It can be, for example, a conventional tank welded from sheet metal in the form of a box. This design should be installed in the garden at the highest place. Water is poured here from a well, well or kopanka and left to warm up in the sun for several days. After that, it can be used for gentle watering of any garden crops, including onions.
Using this water to moisten the beds ensures better head growth and reduces the risk of infection with all sorts of fungi and bacteria. This is explained very simply. When watering with warm water, the tissues of the bulbs do not experience any stress due torapidly changing ambient temperature.
Danger of overfilling
Of course, you need to water the onions often enough. It is impossible to overdry this garden crop in any case. Otherwise, it will be simply impossible to get a good harvest. But at the same time, it is impossible to allow overflows of this plant in any case. If there is a swamp in the garden with onions, it will quickly begin to rot. In addition, excess moisture will create favorable conditions in the soil for the development of various pathogens. For example, with excessive watering, onions can easily become sick with powdery mildew. In this case, even if it is possible to harvest some kind of crop, it is unlikely that it will be possible to save the heads in winter. Onions will begin to rot from the side of the roots in a couple of months.
In damp areas, this garden crop is best planted in slightly raised beds. It would also be a good solution to arrange drainage in the garden by digging ditches to drain water into a receiving well and laying perforated pipes in them. In this case, not only onions, but also other garden crops will produce much larger yields.
How much water to use
Watering onions is usually done quite plentifully. The specific amount of water used depends on the age of the plants. In any case, after watering, the bed should be soaked just enough so that everything, even the longest head roots, “earned”. The grown onion is usually watered at the rate of 10 liters per 1 m22 beds. The soil under the plantswet about 15-20 cm. For freshly planted onions, you can use less water.
More things to know
A couple of weeks after planting, it is advisable to mulch the onion bed with manure or well-rotted compost. This should be done after watering. The earth is loosened beforehand, all weeds are removed from the garden, and then it is covered with the selected type of mulch with a layer of up to 3-5 cm.
How to water onions with nutrient mixture
On a bed mulched with manure or compost, onions will, of course, grow much faster. However, such feeding is still not enough for this plant. In order to get a good harvest of onions, during the growing season it should be additionally watered several times with a nutrient mixture. You can prepare such top dressing using, for example, mullein infusion. The latter is diluted with water in a ratio of approximately 1x10.
Watering the onion with such a mixture should be done as carefully as possible. It is highly undesirable to get nutrient solution on feathers.
Watering green onions in the greenhouse
The feathers of this garden crop grow back very quickly. In addition, green onions contain just a huge amount of various vitamins. Therefore, many summer residents plant this crop in greenhouses in early spring. Of course, such onions should be watered correctly.
Experienced gardeners advise to moisten this crop in a greenhouse with a frequency of about twice a week. When growing onions inclosed ground, be sure to monitor the degree of soil moisture. In this case, the soil under the plants should also not dry out. Waterlogging of this crop in the greenhouse should not be allowed.
Watering onions with cold water is not allowed not only in open ground, but also indoors. In the greenhouse, this crop can pick up the infection even faster than in the garden.
How to water seed onions
Of course, in a garden with such onions, the soil should also be periodically moistened. The basic rule in this case is the same as when watering a crop grown on heads. Do not allow the soil under the plants to dry out or become waterlogged. Plentifully water onions planted on seeds should be during flowering. This will allow you to get a large quality set. It is not necessary to mulch the garden bed with such onions. But it is worth loosening the ground under it after each watering.
Using sprinkler systems
With the use of such equipment, onions can be watered throughout the season. It is systems of this type that are considered the most suitable for this culture. The main structural element of such equipment is an irrigation head mounted in a special installation. These sprinklers are laid underground. During irrigation, when pressure is applied to the pipeline, rods with nozzles at the end extend outward. Sprinkler height can reach 5-30 cm.
On sale today there are two types of such equipment - fan and rotary. For onions, the first is better.type of sprinkler. Rotary models are more often used for watering lawns.
