I use blood meal, bagged chicken manure and Dr. Earth's triple 4. Also have begun to use bone meal. Add a good dose when making the beds and then top dress in late winter/early spring. Mix the amendments with a composted bark produce and/or recycled potting soil. Generally only do that once per season.

Also might use soluble seaweed based triple 16 if the foliage looks really starved. Might do this once or twice.

I lay down a balanced organic fertilizer in a band beneath where the onions will be planted. The analysis of the local brand I've used for the past several years is 5-4-3 with added calcium. I topdress with the same stuff after a thorough late spring weeding, or after I pull out the companion crop of leafy greens, sown to smother early weeds. Then I start mulching with fresh grass clippings. The three-way feed of banding, topdressing and nutritious mulch works well.

Just blood meal won't do. It will give you a flush of soft new growth but provides no phosphorous, critical for onions and garlic.

Onions and garlc are in the LEAFY vegetable category and so they need more Nitrogen than anything else. Normally in a well established garden, There is enough P and K, accumulation. I use mostly ammonium sulfate (23 -0-0) and once in a while somthing like 24 -6 - 12 .

Yeah I heard it is the leafy growth that makes bigger bulbs. But I am no garlic or onion expert so I know very little about nutritional needs.

I use 12-12-12 it works for me yopper

I noticed you are in 9b. Is that east or west? If you're on the Gulf Coast, with very high rainfall, composted manure like Black Kow is a good idea.

I am in southern California. I broadcast some 4-4-4 fertilizer today on them. In about 2 1/2 months I will give them some blood meal.

I'm kind of surprised that no one has mentioned getting a soil test first before selecting a fertilizer. I had my soil tested this summer and found that all that is needed is straight nitrogen since both phosphorus and potassium are high. Continually adding balanced fertilizers can eventually overdo those two since they are mostly immobile and get locked in, unlike the nitrogen. I'd say test the soil to determine the correct fertilizer.

hortster

The extension office is dead over here. Is there some kind of kit I could buy and use that is good?

Punk, that is a good question that has been discussed numerous times on the Soils forum. Try the question over there. I've always had extension do my soil tests.

hortster

Pure horse apples (no bedding) is what I use, but my soil is high in P and K to begin with. Then lots of water and don't plant onions too deep. Start with plants not sets.
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Any soil that you have been gardening for several years already, if you send a sample to a test lab , it is near certain that they will tell you the soil has more than enough P and K. THis being the case and when it comes to fertilizing LEAFY veggies (onions, galic), all you need to apply is big "N" (=nitrogen). You can apply a lot of 4-4-4, 10-10-10, 13-13-13, 16-16-16 ..et cetera. They are not going to hurt big time and the P

Little Minnie Why do you pull your onions when the tops are still green? YOPPER

Those are Walla Wallas which don't store. They were pulled when they flopped so I could immediately plant fall crops. They will not grow after flopping.

Grow Walla Walla onions and they keep in the spare refrigerator from July thru March or later.