Details
- Day Length Requirement:
- originally were a short day onion, but they have been adjusted to grow well in long day areas
- Peaceful Valley considers them to be an Intermediate and Long Day variety
- Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia considers them to be a Long Day variety
- Type:
- Shape: round
- Color: light brown skin, light yellow flesh
- Maturity: 100-125 days
- Size: ?
- Taste:
- relatively low in sulfur, which means they are a very mild onion
- high water content (85% water) results in great flavor because it dilutes the sulfur
- crisp and juicy sweet onion
- mild enough to eat raw
- Disease Resistance: ?
- Storage:
- limited; just a couple of months
- consider them to be seasonal and perishable
- high water and low sulfur content makes them not good for storing
Notes:
- very cold hardy
- sulfur causes the strong, pungent onion flavor, while water & sugar content result in sweeter flavor
Sources: (where to buy)
Results from My Garden:
- 2010-2011: harvested 9 bulbs = 5 lbs; 9 oz on average
- 2011-2012: no records kept
- 2012-2013: no records kept
- 2013-2014: 1 lb of transplants = 41 plants
- planted biointensively at 4″ on 10/31/13
- bolted in early May; pulled those to eat (14 large scallions)
- had to harvest early (5/13/14), so they hadn’t gotten big yet… (26 small to medium bulbs
- confused on maturity days:
- stated to be 100-125 days
- I pulled them at 194 days (May), but they still hadn’t formed full bulbs
- also, I planted them according to their recommendations (Oct-Nov)
- so maybe the over-wintering days don’t count?
- Total Harvest:
- 14 large scallions
- 26 small to medium bulbs
I just planted some Walla Walla seeds a few weeks and they have germinated and most have long shoots or leaves or stems whatever they are called, and now quite a few have a second leaf I guess it is called; hope someone corrects me on terminology because I am desperate to know the right terms. These things are too young to touch much without damaging them, so I figure I need to let them grow a lot more before I remove them from one pot and separate them. I am wondering though, in order to increase the storage, can sulfur be added to increase the sulfur content of Walla Walla’s?
Hi Bennie,
Love Walla Wallas! Your seedlings are ready to be moved into individual containers (6-packs are good) when their leaves are about 5-6″ tall, then when they are 1/2 to full pencil width, they can be planted outside – as long as your temps don’t go below 20 deg F.
I have gone ahead and planted them outside at the 5-6″ stage, but I think they do better when they’ve had more of a chance to grow their leaves inside. They don’t do much growing of the leaves in the short days of winter.
You might want to check out my full article on growing onions for details on transplanting: https://www.theplantlady.com/how-to-grow-onions/#transplants
Oh, and yes, these early green shoots are leaves. Onions only send up a stem-like stalk when they flower, or bolt. I highly recommend letting some of your onions go to seed – their flowers attract tons of beneficial insects, and volunteer onions are a good thing in my opinion.
Hi Plant Lady,
I am a plant lady too! Just discovered I’ve been planting pencil starts for Walla Walla Sweets at the wrong time og year! Always has great results planting in Spring but apparently they are supposed to go in in November.
This year my source for starts has gone out of business and I don’t know quite what to do!
Any suggestions besides divide the bunches from a pony pack (hair thin!) and wait?
Hello fellow Plant Lady!
The pony packs are definitely easy to find locally, but they do take forever to bulb up. I have some that have stayed in the ground for a year or two before finally picking (not necessarily Walla Wallas, though).
Territorial Seed still carries them (http://www.territorialseed.com/product/walla-walla-onion-plants) you could plant some now and see what they do.
Good luck!!