I have been ordering from Dixondale for years and love their onion plants and service. Of their long day varieties, the most successful in my New Jersey garden was always Walla Walla, which is also very popular in the pacific northwest, followed by Candy and Big Daddy.

This year I moved my garden to my summer home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia and tried seven varieties from Dixondale. This garden has the same climate as my NJ garden due to the elevation (2,600 ft), but the days are about 20 minutes shorter at latitude 37 (versus 40 in NJ). The winner in the VA garden was Copra, followed closely by Candy - both consistently large & beautiful globe shaped onions! Ailsa Craig also did very well, yielding the largest onions, but they only store for about a month. Next came Red Zeppelin, but they were late and inconsistent in size - ranging from small to huge.

The worst performers were Walla Walla, Yellow Spanish, and Big Daddy. The poor performance of the usually great Walla Wallas may have been due to the plants I received being rather leggy and limpy, giving them a poor start. Usually the plants from Dixondale are really healthy, but this year the Walls Wallas were sub par. I may give them another chance next year.

I suggest you try a sampling of Walla Walla, Candy, and Copra and see what works best in your garden. Be sure to give them plenty of nitrogen and water starting a couple of weeks after planting. I also mulch my onions with a few inches of hay to hold the moisture and suppress weeds (onions hate weeds), but this is not necessary if you keep up on the watering and weeding. Dixondale has excellent growing instructions on their web site.

My wife thinks I over did the onions and garlic this year, planting 400 of each for just the two of us. I agree, so I cut the plantings down to only 360 of each for next year! :-) She doesn't understand the addiction.

TomNJ/VA

WCThomas,
Thanks for sharing your experience!

Do you eat any as green onions and if so do you prefer one variety over the others for green onions?

Thanks,
Tom

No I let them all mature into full sized onions. I hold the Copras in my cellar because they have a long storage life, and most of the rest get chopped or sliced for freezing. And of course some get canned in tomato sauces and salsa.

TomNJ/VA