sweet onions

[Shadow]

The wife wants to know if anyone has ideas how to help our onions be sweet. We like them cooked over a open fire pit. We usually eat at least one meal cooked over a fire pit a day. But our onions from our garden are usually a little strong and hot. Any ideas. David and Judy

[pheasantplucker]

Are you working with Vadalias or some other sweet onion to begin with? I crave onions and eat them every chance I get. I like to marinate them in Balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing, and then saute them in a skillet. When they caramelize, they become sweeter. Maybe keep a cast iron skillet near your campfire and cook some up till they brown a bit.

[foxtrapper]

Starts with the type of onion. A coarse yellow onion will never be sweet, no matter what you do to it cookingwise. A vidalia white onion on the other hand can hardly be anthing but sweet.

So, what sort of onion are you starting with?

[Belfrybat]

I grow both Texas Y1015s for sweet onions and regular yellow burmudas for zestier one. I only grill the 1015's -- I also eat them like apples. Sweet onions will cook up sweet, zesty onions will have a bite.

[English Oliver]

Take a sweet onion, cut in half, remove a small part of the core and fill this with butter and crushed garlic. Put the onion back together, wrap in foil and cook it on the grill turning once.

"O"

[Wolf mom]

Here ya' go: All about sweet onions. You have to start with growing sweet onions for your growing area.

http://www.sweetonionsource.com/difference.html

[Joshie]

Grow Candy Onions. YUM!!!!!!

We planted close to a thousand for a household of three. Planted them a bit too close (on purpose) in places. We're using about every other one of those for green onions. As DD says, they're sweet but oniony.

DD says I didn't plant enough.

[Ernie]

You'll not grow true Vidalia's anyplace outside of Georgia. It's a function of the soil that makes them as sweet as they are.

I save some onions to harvest right after the first frost. Plants use sugar as anti-freeze and a little cold snap makes root vegetables really sweet.

[Jean in Virginia]

According to dh, it's the amount of sulfur in the soil, so planting vidalia or walla plants anywhere else will not give you the same onion as the ones grown in the original area.

It's frustrating. We haven't tried the candy onion, but will next year.

Also, we always buy the plants, since they don't try to flower as quickly as the onion sets do.

[mnn2501]

You have to plant a sweet variety

[kyweaver]

My mamaw said mean farmers grow hot onions. Gotta be sweet to grow sweet!

[Paquebot]

For those wanting to grow Vidalia onions, there is no such variety. They are merely Texas Granex F1 hybrid grown in particular low-sulfur soils. If you live in the southern third of the US, plant that one. If your soil and other conditions are the same as around Vidalia, GA, you'll get the same results.

Martin

[kens]

onions for breakfast,onions for dinner,onions for supper.love it.