Planting onion sets with a garlic planter
Short answer: yes, if you are planting sets. An onion set is a small bulb that goes in root plate down at a spacing, which is the same problem a garlic clove presents, and we build a dedicated onion planting wheel for it. If you are planting onion seed or transplants, this is the wrong machine.
That distinction is the whole article, so it is worth getting straight before anything else.
Sets, seed and transplants are three different jobs
Growers say “planting onions” to mean three quite different operations, and equipment that handles one may be useless for another.
| What you’re planting | What it is | Does the PL-22 handle it? |
|---|---|---|
| Sets | Small immature bulbs, roughly 1–2 cm | Yes — this is what the onion wheel is for |
| Seed | Small dry seed, thousands per ounce | No — that needs precision seed metering |
| Transplants | Seedlings with roots and tops | No — that needs a transplanter |
A machine built around placing a bulb into an opened row cannot meter seed, and it has nowhere to hold a seedling’s leaves. Nobody should sell you one on the promise that it does all three.
Sets, though, are genuinely the same problem as garlic. Both are a small bulb with a basal plate that wants to face down, planted at a fixed spacing in an opened row and covered. That is what this machine was designed to do.
The wheel is what changes
In-row spacing on the PL-22 is set by the planting wheels — pegs spaced around a rim, which open the row at fixed intervals as the machine rolls. The spacing between pegs is your in-row spacing.
That has two consequences worth understanding before you order.
Onions want a different wheel than garlic. Garlic growers commonly run 4″ to 8″ in-row. Onion sets typically go closer than that. Different spacing, different peg count, different wheel — which is exactly why we build one specifically for onions rather than telling you to make do.
You cannot dial spacing in later. Row-to-row spacing is adjustable on the machine. In-row spacing is not — it is a property of the wheel. Changing it means a different set of wheels, not a turn of a wrench. So tell us what you are planting and at what spacing before we build, and if you intend to run both garlic and onions, say so at the quote stage.
What we know and what we don’t
We build the onion wheel and it works. Here is where our knowledge stops, stated plainly rather than papered over:
- We have not published a planting rate for onions. The 600–800 cloves per rider per hour figure is a garlic number, measured planting garlic. Sets are a different size and handle differently. We are not going to restate a garlic figure with an onion label on it.
- Shallots are not confirmed yet. Nobody has told us they have planted them with a PL-22. They plant much like sets, and Doug sees no reason they would not work with the onion wheel, but until a grower has done it we list them as unconfirmed. If you try it, we would genuinely like to hear how it went.
- The undercutter should lift onions, but garlic is its track record. Doug’s view is that it works for any root crop: the blade loosens the whole bed from underneath, whatever is growing in it. We have not yet published results from onion growers.
If any of those matter to your decision, call and ask — you will get “we don’t know” where that is the true answer.
Is it right for a small farm?
Yes, for the same reasons as garlic. Planting sets by hand is the same kneeling, root-plate-down job, and the PL-22 turns it into seated work: two riders placing every set the right way up, with a third person driving the tractor. The rate holds through the afternoon, and you are not relying on finding a big crew at planting time.
How the machine compares with hand-planting on labour-hours depends on how fast your crew plants sets by hand, and since we have not published an onion planting rate, we are not going to guess one. Run your own numbers with your crew’s rate.
If you grow garlic as well, one frame covers both crops with a change of wheel — and at garlic harvest the undercutter mounts to that same frame. If onions are a small sideline next to a main garlic crop, spec the machine for the garlic and treat onions as the bonus.
Where to start
Tell us your bed width, your row centres, your in-row spacing for each crop you want to plant, and your tractor. We build to that.
Or call Doug on 519-379-6210 and describe what you are trying to do.
Keep reading
-
Garlic crop rotation: what to grow between and how long to wait Rotation is cheap disease control that only works if the break is real: long enough, free of allium volunteers, and not planted to a crop that hosts the same pests. -
When to cut garlic scapes, and why it matters Scaping is a June labour pass that protects bulb size, and it produces the first thing a garlic farm has to sell all year. When to do it, how, and what the scapes are worth to you. -
Mulching garlic for winter: timing, depth and spring Winter mulch is there to stop the ground cycling between frozen and thawed, not to keep garlic warm. When to spread it, how much, and what to do with it in April.