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Onion Progress

An onion at bulbing stage
red creole onion




This is not my first time farming onions. I once planted a crop of Jambar f1 onions. The results were good. I got large red onion bulbs that I sold to a muhindi at 50 bob per kg. They were very, very large. It was a quarter of an acre. 

Jambar is supposed to mature in 90 days, but because I am in a cooler climate, the onion took much longer to bulb. I am not complaining because the harvest was good. 

That was several years ago, and this time I am doing red creole onion. It is an open pollinated variety that I expect will produce more average-sized, red bulbs.

There is an older crop that is already bulbing and I have top dressed it with CAN. So far I haven't applied any synthetic fertilizer because I had applied plenty of goat manure. 

But now that it is raining, I can apply some CAN to speed up last minute growth. 

I am hoping to convert to fully using organic fertilizers within the next two or three years. If I can compost the stalks from my entire maize crop and increase my flock of chickens, I will no longer need any inorganic fertilizers on my farm. 

The compost will improve the soil and the chicken manure will provide enough nitrogen. 

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