After which crops can onions be planted in winter?

Onion

When starting to grow any crop, it's always best to listen to the advice of experienced gardeners, especially when it comes to everyday plants like potatoes, onions, and tomatoes. The secrets of care aren't just about fertilizing and watering. You need to know the best time to plant to get onions like the ones pictured, how to choose a planting site, and which crops can be planted after them. Before planting your first winter onions, it's best to research all the necessary information.

Basics of the theory

Those who cultivate agricultural crops and acquire the scientific knowledge to do so are well familiar with the concept of crop rotation. Originally known as "multi-field" (multi-crop), it refers to the proper alternation of crops on a given plot of land.

Even novice vegetable growers know that if you plant herbs and vegetables in the same place for 2-3 years, you can't expect a good harvest, no matter how optimal all the other conditions are.

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Important!

Planting the same crops in a constantly localized space over time leads to soil depletion, which is commonly referred to as fatigue.

The problem is that certain crops require a specific set of micronutrients present in the soil. Each year, the deficiency of these nutrients increases, while the accumulation of others, released by the root system, increases. Proper rotation allows other "newcomers" to utilize what their predecessors lack and replenish the soil's missing nutrients with their own products.

There's another important factor: pests that manage to overwinter in the soil, despite the most thorough treatment, awaken in the spring to find crops ripe for destruction. If you plant onions in the same spot during the winter, you risk losing the harvest before it fully ripens. This can be safely avoided if you know which plants won't pose a potential threat to the bulbs and tops.

The key advantages of a scientific approach and the use of crop rotation principles allow for significant improvements in just 12 months. By planting onions in the fall after carefully selected predecessors, several beneficial effects can be achieved:

improving the hygroscopicity and water permeability of the soil for planting and achieving maximum absorption of fertilizers applied in advance;
using deposits made by other crops and creating an obstacle to their growth for the benefit of newly planted vegetables;
restoration of microflora and optimization of the process of restoration of depleted soil;
full use of the soil available to the vegetable grower and obtaining large and healthy onion heads during the harvest period.

Fact!

Long-term scientific experiments with crop rotation have allowed us to determine which crops benefit most from crop rotation and provide recommendations for its application. However, planting onions before winter after their natural rivals or replanting them in the same spot will not result in a good harvest.

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Recommended and prohibited precursors

The optimal option, mentioned in every publication on the topic of which crops are best to plant after any vegetables, including onions, at any favorable time, is green manure. It's no coincidence that they're called green manures.

After green manure, planting onions will yield a good harvest. Green manure crops include legumes (vetch, peas, chickpeas, lentils, beans, and soybeans), as well as clover, sainfoin, winter crops, and cruciferous plants (radishes, mustard, and rapeseed).

Professional agronomists recommend buckwheat, lupine, alfalfa, wheat, and rye, which can be sown over large areas, yielding double the benefits and a full-fledged new harvest. This will also create a large supply of natural fertilizer for subsequent field management.

Interesting!

Those with very small plots recommend planting peas and beans, and for root vegetables, it's sometimes better to please the eye before winter and plant amaranth, mallow, or phacelia.

In fact, the list of ornamental plants that can provide double benefits is much longer. They can be planted between vegetable beds or in severely depleted soil that is set aside for restoration and temporarily left unseeded.

The benefits of green manure are undeniable, and are backed by years of practice. Before planting onions in the fall, it's important to analyze the soil conditions in the designated area. Long-term planning doesn't take much time, but it yields excellent results.

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For reference!

Legumes enrich the soil with nitrogen, reduce weeds, and inhibit the growth of existing ones. Alfalfa, with its powerful root system, loosens the soil layers that less adapted plants cannot penetrate.

Soil biomass, formed humus, and increased activity and content of soil microflora are just a few of the benefits that come from planting such crops. Listing them all would take quite a while, as over 400 plants fall into this category, so you can always choose suitable ones as winter onion precursors.

It's equally important to remember which vegetable crops winter onions can be planted after: they thrive in soil that's been damaged by tomato plantings, cabbage beds, cucumber beds, and lettuce. While it's not recommended, it's generally possible to plant them after potatoes if they haven't had any pests, although this rarely happens.

Please note!

Planting winter onions after garlic or other onion varieties is an extremely unfavorable option for vegetable growers. Any root crop or one with a developed root system is an undesirable predecessor. Therefore, alfalfa, radishes, horseradish, carrots, celery, parsnips, and root parsley should be excluded from the list of green manure crops.

The landing process

After the selected planting site has been dug, it needs to be fertilized. Onions thrive in fertile soil, and winter onions especially need it, as they'll need strength and nourishment to survive the harsh winter conditions. Experienced gardeners typically apply potassium fertilizers, superphosphates, and compost, and, to be on the safe side, sprinkle the future beds with wood ash. The process itself is quite simple.

Shallow trenches are dug in the soil (a depth of 5 centimeters is sufficient). Each bed is spaced 15-20 cm from the previous one.

Prepared and dried onion sets (bulbs from 1 to 3 cm in diameter), laid out at a distance of 5-7 cm, are covered with a layer of dry and loose soil.

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Watering is not required, but if it does not rain for 10 days, you can water it, but a little.

Before frost, the beds are covered with spruce branches or pine needles. Dry leaves can be used for this purpose, but it is not recommended due to the potential danger of pests overwintering in them.

Seed preparation is different if you're planting shallots instead of the usual onions: instead of drying the seeds, cut off the necks and soak them in intensely warm water for 24 hours. If you're growing batun (weeping onions) to get vitamin-rich greens in the spring, you won't need to go through such trouble—just dry the seeds and plant them according to the instructions above.