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I finally went outside and looked at my garden boxes today- and, woo, my lettuces are finally sprouting and coming above ground! I got a better germination rate than I thought, and I'll definitely be doing some thinning out when the time comes.

However, I planted onion sets at the same time- some in each of my garden boxes (to help ward off insects, etc) but none of them seem to be sprouting. Am I being too impatient? I put the lettuce and the onions in ground at the same time, roughly 2 and a half weeks ago. How long should I wait for the onions to show above ground before I should plant some more sets, and consider the older plantings a loss? I'm still new to the whole onion thing, and while my seedlings inside are doing well, I'm lost on the onions!

I may have put the first planting too deep, and fixed that by laying another set closer to the surface in another box- I figure at least one of them will come up.

I generally leave it so that the tip of the set is close to the surface.

why not plant more AND hope the first planting still comes up?

!potatoes! wrote:I generally leave it so that the tip of the set is close to the surface.

why not plant more AND hope the first planting still comes up?

Thats what I did The first planting ended up being 2 inches below the surface. Whoops. The second planting a week and a half later ended up being an inch, but I ended up putting some compost on top of it- so maybe an inch and a half? Is that still too deep? I planted round side down, pointed side up.

I'm afraid to plant more, I'll end up with an onion infestation or something

It is a simple matter of digging a few up to see what progress they are making.

jal_ut wrote:It is a simple matter of digging a few up to see what progress they are making.

I thought about that- but will it hurt the roots if I dig them up? I have some starts inside I've been curious about too (it's in a large pot, not a small tray) I've always been afraid to dig up my plants, move the soil around, in fear for hurting the seeds and making them die.

All you have to do is dig up 1 or 2 not all of them.

Please don't be afraid of planting again it is getting late if the first ones don't come up you will be without. If you plant and they do than you can harvest some early or thin them but at least you will assure you have something.

Good luck

SPierce wrote:I thought about that- but will it hurt the roots if I dig them up? I have some starts inside I've been curious about too (it's in a large pot, not a small tray) I've always been afraid to dig up my plants, move the soil around, in fear for hurting the seeds and making them die.

Most vegetable seedlings are very forgiving when being moved. They may wilt for a few days but they should recover fine.

Onion roots are uniform size and are large for the plant's size and they pull apart very easily without many breaking. They are the easiest vegetable to transplant for me.

If you need to transplant seedlings that are in one container, I find the easiest method is to wash off most of the soil, stick the seedlings under water, and pull them apart while they are underwater. I find that less roots break using this method.

Was planning on going out and checking this morning- but- augh- it's raining! Hopefully it'll dry up some tomorrow. Thanks everyone for the advice

Don't worry about hurting the roots. They actually sell onion transplants which are young onion plants that have the roots on them and all. They were pulled up from their containers, packaged. sat on a store shelf and then planted. These plants grow fine, so I don't think that you have much to worry about with disturbing your sets.

You did say onion sets? The little dry onions? It won't hurt them to dig one or two up to see how they are progressing. You can replant them and they will do just fine.

I think your onions will come up. They will live through winter in the ground. Patience.

thank you garden5 and jal I actually decided I was being too impatient, and that I should give my onions another week before I try anything, since that's the lenth of time my lettuces took.

I'll just go back to willing my indoor pepper and lima bean plants to sprout! They're the only thing that hasn't peaked above soil inside yet. I'll be outside like a maniac with my camera once things start getting a bit taller!

Ah, the joys of gardening, you want to have a party when things peek above around, and worry if they haven't yet.

You guys were right. Got curious and dug around the garden box a little bit today, and found a long root system. What was it connected too? An onion