Only a few days after these green onions emerged, they’re in the field and heading into the ground. Haha, there’s no doubt this is a lot more labor intensive than using a seeder. Unless the weather conditions are really extreme, like a long, hot drought with scorching daily temperature and bone dry ground, it’s hard to argue for the plug sheet approach. But not impossible. Let’s see how they do…
IN THE PHOTO: A sharp and critical eye will notice that the seedlings in the tray seem pushed up against one side, instead of satisfyingly centered. This was my error, watering them in with a spouted can, along with a bunch of other seedling trays sitting outside. Onions don’t quickly put out lots of secondary roots that spread through the seedling mix and hold it together. Instead, at first there’s mostly just the radicle, that long white root that comes out of veg seed, heads down and, for most other vegetables, also branches out. So the plugs got kind of soupy and the force of the water pushed the onions to one side. You can see one hanging over the edge because it stuck more to the drainage hole in the cell than to the plug of seedling mix. Details! I should have remembered to use a shower.
