Golden Onion Seeds 2.5g

Golden Onion is the everyday workhorse of the Egyptian kitchen: round to globe-shaped bulbs wrapped in glossy, papery golden-bronze skins, with crisp ivory flesh and a balanced sweet-pungent flavour that mellows into a rich sweetness when cooked. It caramelises beautifully for stews, koshari topping, soups and sautés, while staying punchy enough to lift a fresh salad or sandwich. Because it forms firm, well-cured bulbs with tight outer skins, this golden type stores well after harvest — a true kitchen staple you can grow from seed at home.

Planting

Onion is a cool-season crop, so in Egypt it is grown over the mild winter rather than the hot summer. The practical method is to sow seed in a nursery in autumn, from mid-September to mid-October, then transplant the seedlings later. Choose a spot in full sun, which onions need for their best growth. A short-day variety like this one is essential at Egypt's low latitude, because bulbing here is triggered at only about 11-12 hours of daylight; long-day types would grow leaves but never form bulbs. Sow seed about 1.3 cm deep in the nursery. Optimum soil temperature for germination is 15-25 C, and seedlings usually emerge in about 2-3 weeks. Transplant the seedlings once they are pencil-thick, roughly 30-35 days after sowing — around mid-November works well — setting them about 5 cm deep with 7.6-10 cm between plants in rows 20-46 cm apart. Wider in-row spacing gives larger bulbs, while closer spacing yields smaller ones.

Fertilizing

Onions do best in soil rich in organic matter with a pH of 6.0-7.0. Work fertilizer into the top 15 cm of soil, and apply phosphorus and potassium according to a soil test before planting. As the plants grow through the cool winter, side-dress with nitrogen to keep them developing. Stop nitrogen once bulbing begins in late winter, because excess nitrogen delays bulb maturity and can give soft bulbs. Onion is also sensitive to soil salinity, a concern in parts of the Delta, so use good-quality irrigation water and well-drained beds.

Care

Keep the soil consistently moist near field capacity, providing about 2.5 cm of water per week and wetting to roughly 30 cm depth; the total seasonal water need is around 350-550 mm. The plants are most sensitive to water shortage at transplanting and during bulb enlargement, about 60 days after transplanting. Once the bulbs reach full size and the tops begin to fall, stop watering. If you direct-seeded, thin the seedlings to 7.6-10 cm apart before they crowd or begin to bulb. Watch for onion thrips and onion maggot (onion fly), and for diseases such as neck rot, basal rot, pink root, downy mildew, purple blotch and white rot; avoiding excess nitrogen and rotating crops helps reduce these problems. Harvest when about half the tops have fallen over and dried, the necks soften and papery outer skins have formed — in Egypt this usually runs from roughly March to May.