The last 2 years we have raised fantastic onions. They are nice and large, store in our basement until late April and taste great...cooked! However the fumes that come from the onions when I try to slice or dice them is unbelievable! I have resorted to an electric chopper but just dicing them in chunks make my eyes burn and nose run. Plus we can't really use them raw as they are like eating fire. Last year we were told to water them more. This year we watered them almost twice as much as the rest of the garden and I think they are even hotter! It doesn't seem to matter if they grown from seeds or sets. What can we do to make them milder?
Did you change varieties ? Or change where you planted them in the garden ? For the ones you have now try soaking them in either milk or add a pinch of baking soda to water and soak them in it. I read that sprinkling a little baking soda ( 1/2 tsp ) around tomato plants will sweeten tomatoes by lowering the acidity. Might work for onions too. Oh ! Re-read the post,, you mean all your onions are hot even the ones you grew before ? If so it has to be the soil. Onions taste different depending on where they are grown.
Our soil is 7.6 so I wonder if that could be the problem? Maybe if we can sweeten the soil a little that will help.
That's what the baking soda is supposed to do. There was an article in our paper from the ag extension service a while back about just that thing. They were talking about using it to sweeten tomatoes but its worth a try on onions.
It said 1/4 tsp soda per gallon of water for tomatoes but I would use 1/2 tsp. per gallon for onions. Only thing it didn`t say was how often to water with it. If it were me I would water at the beginning of the growing season and again about the middle. Should not take more than that. Or if you grow a lot of onions use a kitchen hand sifter and sift it on the top of the soil a couple of weeks before planting and just water it in. It says not too much of it though !!
