In almost every garden, you can find such a culture as - onions. Some people grow it to get turnips, for the second more greens are needed. Now there are many new varieties, one of them is the Exibishen variety of medium-late ripening period.
It was created in Holland, its main difference from other varieties is a large onion (each of them can stretch on weights up to 0.5 kg, there are also larger ones). And not only this variety is good - it attracts with its sweet taste, and high yield, this is due to the small amount of essential oils in the bulbs. Many people eat it not only as part of salads, but also on their own, like an ordinary apple. This variety has only one minus - the bulbs are stored for a short time (shelf life does not exceed four months after harvesting), and it is not surprising that this is exclusively a salad variety.
Gardeners speak well of him, because although he has a short shelf life, the variety forms an enviable crop. The bulbs grow very large, when sown with seeds directly on the bed, the heads grow up to 500 g, and when grown in seedlings, the bulb can gain 1 kg. The heads are round-oval, yellow in color with a thin neck.
Growing onion seedlings Exibishen
It is not difficult to get onion seedlings, the main thing is to make a little effort and create suitable conditions for seedlings.
Presowing preparation
Before sowing, it is necessary to check onion seeds for germination, for this they take 10 pieces of seeds, put them in a damp cloth, leave them for 5 days in a warm place. After that, you can determine their quality.
Any onion seeds bite with difficulty, because of the high amount of essential oils, for this reason, they must be prepared before sowing. To do this, take 0.5 tsp. drinking soda and pour it into hot tea leaves (soda will soften water, and tea infusion will kill the embryos of diseases). Seeds are kept in the solution for an hour, after which they are kept for another hour in a solution of sodium humate, then dried a little on a napkin and sown.
Onion Seedling Care Exhibit
In this onion variety, the growing season lasts about 115 days from the time of sowing. To get a good harvest of onions, seeds for seedlings must be planted in March. Sowing is performed in several stages:
1. First, buy high-quality seeds for sowing;
2. If you purchased seed, then it does not need additional processing (seeds are processed by the manufacturer);
3. Own seeds or purchased from another gardener must be prepared in advance;
4. Seeds can withstand 10-15 minutes in a weak salt solution. Empty and poor-quality seeds will remain on the surface (they need to be thrown away), and full (suitable for sowing) will sink to the bottom;
5. After sorting, the seed is disinfected in a weak potassium permanganate;
6. At the last stage, the seeds are washed in running water, and then dried.
Then chernushka is sown in previously prepared containers. Seedling plastic containers, or wooden boxes, are suitable for this.
The soil mixture is prepared using humus, cow manure and garden soil. Soil is poured into disinfected boxes, and seeds are sown. Sowing is carried out to a depth of 1.5 cm, the boxes after planting are covered with a film. The temperature in the room must be maintained at least 20 degrees. Seeds hatch for about a week, after which the boxes are set in a bright place.
Seedling Care
After emergence, the temperature is reduced to 10-12 ºC, when the seedlings are 7 days old, the room temperature needs to be increased to 1-18 degrees during the day and 10-12 degrees at night. After the seedlings get stronger, they break through it, leaving between the plants a free space of 2-3 cm.
The seedlings are watered with water at room temperature, while drying the upper layer of soil in boxes. It must not be allowed to dry completely, nor should the soil be too moist.
Onion seedlings before transplanting to the garden, you need to feed at least twice, with an interval of two weeks. For this, 10 g of urea, 5 g of KCL and 20 g of superphosphate are diluted in a bucket of water. It is possible to feed, use a solution of chicken manure at a concentration of 1:10. Exibishen onion seedlings respond well to a single additional dressing of 1 g of ammonium nitrate diluted in 1 l of water.
Since the seedlings develop in the winter, the seedlings that have appeared probably lack sunlight, because at that time the daylight hours are still short. And onion seedlings need twelve-hour lighting, otherwise the plants will stretch. To correct this drawback, an additional light source is installed above the seedlings at a height of 20-25 cm - a fluorescent or LED lamp, a phytolamp. After the appearance of the first seedlings, they must not be turned off for 3 days, then 12 hours a day - for example, from 6 to 18 hours. If the backlight will be produced using simple incandescent lamps, then the desired effect will not be achieved.
After the appearance of the third leaves on the seedlings, they need to be shortened by 2/3 of the length. This operation is performed so that the onion seedlings Exibishen does not fall and does not break.
Seedling diseases
With proper care, onions practically do not suffer from pests or diseases, but troubles with seedlings can occur. Seedlings can suffer from onion flies, it can be destroyed by solutions of Zemlin, Muhoyed or Aktara. True, this pest rarely appears in small gardens.
Seedlings can become infected with downy mildew or penosporosis - fungal diseases that can be destroyed by spraying plants, Bordeaux liquid, or the black leg - a disease that occurs with frequent overmoistening of the soil.
Preparing seedlings for planting
From the second to the third decade of April, when the seedlings turn 50-60 days old, and the plants form 3-4 leaves, it is time to transplant the seedlings on the bed if the soil has time to heat up by this period. 12-15 days before the transplant, they begin to harden the seedlings, they take it out to a sunny place (on the street or on the balcony). The first time is 10-15 minutes, daily increasing the time spent in the open air, until the seedlings get used to it.
Transplanting seedlings to the garden
It is necessary to choose a sunny and open place for onion seedlings, the site should be at a decent distance from trees and shrubs that can close plants from the rays of the sun. The beds need to be prepared in advance, starting in the fall. Sandy loamy soils are best suited for planting, in which 50–60 g of complex fertilizer, 2 l of wood ash and 2 buckets of humus or rotted compost are applied per 1 m2 in the fall.
In spring, they level the surface of the beds, make rows 30 cm, 4-5 cm deep and water the soil well. Only whole, well-developed seedlings are planted. The leaves are shortened by 1/3 of the length in order to reduce the evaporation of moisture, the roots are also cut a little, and dipped in a mash, mixed from clay and mullein infusion. Exibishen onion seedlings are placed in rows after 20 cm, the roots of the seedlings are sprinkled with soil, and lightly pressed. The next day, the plot is watered, and after the moisture is absorbed, the bed is mulched.
