Growing onion from sets / Sadnja luka iz lučice

Before I start with today's topic, I have to write few words about catastrophic floods my country Croatia and neighbor ones, Bosnia and Serbia are dealing for the past week. As you probably heard in media, Croatia (eastern part called Slavonia) Bosnia and Serbia needs help. River Sava and some others flooded whole villages and towns and that area looks like huge lake. People lost their homes, some of them lost their loved ones, and lot of people who were farmers lost their animals.  Waters are now beginning to recede, but officials say dangers remain. There is danger of collapsing houses, but also from remain land mines we’ve been dealing with since 1990’s. Water moved them and also moved warning marks. Since the last week, in Croatia is more than 11 000 people evacuated, in Serbia and Bosnia that number is around 30 000 and there is lot of those  affected with floods but not evacuated. Now you can imagine how those people feel. They lost everything they owned in just a few minutes. Many reputable organizations have opened accounts for this purpose, including the Red Cross and some other foundations. If you want to help, please visit http://www.hck.hr/en/page/emergency-appeal-for-flood-affected-people-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina-and-serbia-414  and contribute what you can, or at least - help spread the word.

Now, something about today’s topic. Onions are a good thing to have in your garden. It’s used in so many recopies so it’s useful to grow your own, and speaking about growing – it’s really easy to grow. You can grow onions from sets (I used this method this year) or using onion seeds. You can plant your onions outdoors from the end of March or beginning of April. Since we had such a poor weather during April I didn’t manage to plant it in April so I did it in beginning of May. Now, some 15 days after I planted my onion sets you can see some first seedlings. If you decided to grow onion in your garden you’ll probably hear about long and short day onions. Wonder what’s that? We’ll I did too when I first heard about it. Long day onions are types that begin sprouting when days have 14-16 hours of daylight and short day onions begin sprouting when days have 10-12 hours of daylight. Because of that, long day onions are mostly grown in northern countries while short day onions are best of southern countries.

 Also, you can choose onions by color - yellow, white and red. Yellow onions are most common onions we use in cuisine. It’s the one that have golden/brownish paperly skin on and it’s all purpose onion. White onions as the name say for itself, are white (outside and inside) and have milder taste than yellow ones and are great for salads. Red onions (maybe my most favorite onion type) have nice purple/red color and have even milder taste than white onions. That’s why it’s mostly used in fresh food and is great if you don’t prefer onion taste.  Now you know that, we can get back on planting. When you choose what type of onion is best for you, choose a spot in your garden. You should select place with lot of sun and allow onions to have enough space since they can grow pretty large if they have enough space. More space – bigger onions. Now you should dig the holes. Don’t make them too deep (just a few centimeters) and place one bulb into each hole. When planting onions from sets you can follow same advice as for garlic. 

So, when planting onions, be sure you place them with pointy/green part pointing up. After that place some addition soil around bulb, but don’t cover it too much.  Water it well, onions need enough of water to grow. You will be able to harvest young onions few weeks after planting them, because it takes only some 60 days from planting to harvesting onions from sets. If you don’t have much space, you can still grow your own onions. You can grow them in a pot and you can even grow them inside on a sunny window. Keep in mind they don’t like too much weed around, so take care of your onions. For you who like companion planting you can plant your onions near tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, collards, kale, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, sweet peppers, spinach and lettuce. 

●●●

Prije nego što počnem s današnjom temom , moram napisati nekoliko riječi o katastrofalnim poplavama s kojima se Hrvatska i susjedne nam zemlje, Bosna i Srbija, bore proteklih tjedan dana. Kao što ste vjerojatno čuli u medijima , Hrvatska Bosna i Srbija trebaju pomoć. Rijeka Sava i neke druge potopile su cijela sela i gradove i cijelo područje sada izgleda kao ogromno jezero. Ljudi su izgubili svoje domove, neki od njih su izgubili svoje najmilije, a puno ljudi koji su bili poljoprivrednici izgubili svoje životinje. Voda sada počinje padati, no odgovorni upozoravaju da opasnost ostaje. Postoji opasnost od urušavanja kuća, a probleme stvaraju i mine zaostale još iz '90tih. Voda ih je preselila, a preselila je i oznake upozorenja. Od prošlog tjedna, u Hrvatskoj je evakuirano više od 11 000 ljudi evakuirano, u Srbiji i Bosni taj broj iznosi oko 30 000, a tu je i puno onih koji su pogođeni s poplavama ali nisu evakuirani. Možete samo zamisliti kako se ti ljudi osjećaju. Oni su, u samo nekoliko trenutaka izgubili sve što su imali. Mnoge organizacije otvorile su račune za tu svrhu , uključujući Crveni križ i neke druge fondacije. Ako želite pomoći , posjetite http://www.hck.hr/en/page/emergency-appeal-for-flood-affected-people-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina-and-serbia-414  i pokušajte pomoći koliko možete, ili barem proširite dalje.

Sada, nešto o današnjoj temi. Luk je dobro imati u svom vrtu. Koristi se u mnogim jelima pa je korisno uzgojiti domaći, a govoreći o uzgoju – luk stvarno lako raste. Luk možete uzgojiti iz lučica (za tu sam se metodu odlučila ove godine) ili koristeći sjeme luka. Na otvorenome, luk možete posaditi krajem ožujka ili početkom travnja. Budući da smo tijekom travnja imali tako loše vrijeme luk nisam uspjela posaditi u travnju, pa sam to učinila na početku svibnja . Sada, 15-ak dana nakon što sam zasadila lučice možete vidjeti prve izboje . Ako ste se odlučili na sadnju luka , vjerojatno ćete čuti o ljetnom i zimskom luku. Pitate se što je to? I ja sam se pitala kad sam prvi puta čula te izraze. Ljetni luk počinje nicati kada ima 14-16 sati dnevnog svjetla, a zimskom je dovoljno između 10-12 sati dnevnog svjetla . Zbog toga , ljetni se luk uglavnom uzgaja u sjevernim zemljama , a zimski je najbolji za južna područja.  Također , luk možete odabrati po boji - žutoj , bijeloj i crvenoj. Žuti luk najčešći je luk koji koristimo u kuhinji . To je onaj koji ima zlatnosmeđu  ljusku i to je luk za sve namjene. Bijeli luk (srebrenac) kao što ime kaže za sebe , je bijele boje (izvana i iznutra) i ima blaži okus od žutog, a dobar je za salate. Ljubičasti luk (možda moja najdraža vrsta luka) imaju lijepu ljubičasto/crvenu boju i ima čak i blaži okus od srebrenca. Zato se uglavnom koristi u svježoj hrani, a izvrstan je ako ne vole previše okus luka. Sada kada to znate, možemo se vratiti na sadnju. 

Kada odlučite koja vrsta luk je najbolja za vas , izaberite mjesto u vašem vrtu. Trebate odabrati mjesto s puno sunca i dati luku dovoljno prostora, jer on može narasti prilično velik, ako ima dovoljno prostora . Više prostora - veći luk. Sada trebate iskopati rupe. Nemojte ih napraviti preduboke (svega nekoliko centimetara) i stavite po jednu lučicu u svaku rupu. Kada sadite luk iz lučica, možete slijediti iste savjete kao i za češnjak. 

Dakle, tijekom sadnje, budite sigurni lučice stavljate sa zašiljenim/zelenim dijelom okrenutim prema gore. Nakon toga, zatrpajte lučice zemljom, ali ih nemojte previše prekriti.  Dobro zalijte, jer je luku za rast potrebno dovoljno vode.

U mladom luku moći ćete uživati nekoliko tjedana nakon sadnje, jer vrijeme potrebno od sadnje do branja luka iz lučica traje samo 60-a dana. Ako nemate puno prostora unatoč tome možete uzgojiti vlastiti luk. Možete ga posaditi i u tegli, a luk može rasti čak i u zatvorenom prostoru, na sunčanom prozoru. Imajte na umu da luk ne voli korov,pa se brinite o njemu. Svi vi koji volite zajedničku sadnju luk možete posaditi u blizini rajčica, kupusa, brokule, kelja, korabe, prokulica, paprike, špinata i zelene salate.

<a href="http://www.hypersmash.com/dreamhost/" id="IK150">Check This Out</a>
d8ff803a76334d0e70e8bc096557e50f2f67765bd44b628420