Red Karmen Onions

Sometimes called ‘Spanish onions’ or ‘salad onions,’ Red Karmen Onions have an exceptionally delicate, sweet taste that makes them perfect for salads, sliced on top of burgers, or any cooked dishes that require a light, sweet onion. The bulbs come out flattened yet globe-shaped, and the flesh is a crisp white with quite beautiful light-crimson circles between the scales.

A lovely dark-red onion that produces a heavy crop of red-skinned bulbs with a sweet, yet crunchy white flesh, that stores well.

Easy to grow. And if you want green onions as well, then plant with the sets nearly touching, then harvest every other onion once the tops reach 6” tall. Just don’t plant before April—they like the longer days.

• Plant: February to April
• Harvest: July to September
• Position: Full Sun

Care & Maintenance of Red Karmen Onions Onions

Onions like a sunny, sheltered site in well-drained soil. Plant onions sets 10cm apart in rows 30cm apart from October to mid-April (dependant on variety). Gently push the sets into soft, well-worked soil so that the tip is just showing, and firm the soil around them.

Water if the weather is dry and give an occasional feed with a general liquid fertiliser. A light feed of high potassium fertiliser in June will help ripen the bulbs ready for storage. Stop watering and feeding once your onions have begun to gain some colour on the top, and remove any mulch or soil to expose the bulb to the sun.

Onions can be harvested when the foliage turns yellow and starts to topple over. Leave for two to three weeks and then carefully lift with a garden fork. If you wish to store onions they must be firm, disease-free and then dried for two to three weeks, either laid out in the sun or in a shed if the weather is wet.

Try growing onions with mint to confuse and deter onion fly.