The Sprouting of an Onion

It has been a couple of weeks since I last discussed the exact way that I plant onions using totes.  They take some time before they will show any type of sign of growth or progress.  A couple of days ago I checked them to see if I could see the stems that should be beginning to grow and I happened to like what I saw.

The stems were finally coming in clearly and healthy.  They are small at the moment but they will continuously grow and they can reach over a foot or more in height.  Once they start producing these stems it will be very easy from now on because they can grow without much maintenance.

Once all the stems grow I like to add a thick layer of mulch mainly to retain water and keep the weeds from stealing the nutrients from the soil.  Do not let the soil dry out too quickly because this may cause them to prematurely go to seed and you will have a very poor harvest.  I may add some manure tea and fertilizer to them periodically, but I will not give them too much.  You can check out the pictures below.