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Onion season is in full swing. We've been shipping plants for two weeks now, and they look great!
 No matter when planting time is for
your area, it's a good idea to place your order early. Orders are
filled as they are received, so contact us soon to ensure you receive
all the varieties you want. If you're not sure what onions to choose, we hope this
issue helps you decide. It's a roundup of our all-time customer favorites
for each growing area. Have a look and get your order placed soon!
Happy planning,
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Our Most Popular Onions
All of our onions are top performers and palate pleasers, but a few stand out as particular favorites among our customers. Have a look at this short list and consider adding some to your 2017 onion garden.
Top Short-Day Varieties
 Best Seller
This is our most widely adaptable onion; it will grow from Mexico to Ohio, producing a large, disease-resistant bulb. The bigger it is, the sweeter it tastes!
Best Storage
This open-pollinated heirloom onion has a 6-7 month storage potential with a spicy, Cajun-type flavor. It's very well adapted to all short-day growing regions.
Chart-Topping Intermediates
Overall Best Seller
The yellow, sweet Candy onion is the variety we recommend most often to those just starting to grow onions. It can be grown in almost the entire country, except the southernmost and northernmost areas. We grow over 60 million Candy onion plants each year to keep up with demand!
 Most Popular Red
This beautiful red, a Dixondale exclusive, can be harvested in as early as 85 days, making it great for selling early at farmers markets. It's extremely bolt resistant and contains higher concentrations of antioxidants than many onions.
Stellar Long-Day Varieties
Prize-Winning Largest
This sweet, yellow globe-shape heirloom is a true giant, regularly reaching six pounds. It's ideal for entering state fairs!
 Dixondale Exclusive -- Order Early!
This is a deep red, globe-shaped onion with a 6-8 month storage potential. Our Red Zeppelin seed is extremely limited, so please order early!
The Best of the Best
While you can't go wrong with any of our onion varieties (as long as they fit your growing area), the onions discussed above are some of our most popular and best-tasting. Give them a try, and we think you'll see just how wonderful they are!
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TV's
State Plate to Feature Dixondale on Nov. 25!
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Want to take a visual "foodie" trip to Dixondale Farms on Friday, November 25?
Tune into television's
State Plate,
where host Taylor Hicks will be visiting the farm to help Dixondale's Emily Lord prepare one of our signature onion dishes, which will be enjoyed on the air.
Restaurateur Hicks travels around the country sampling each state's popular foods and cultural favorites. He visits farms, markets, festivals, and other venues, but never restaurants.
State Plate
is a hands-on cooking show in which Hicks helps with the food prep, which may mean milking a cow, picking peaches, or making cheese. And of course, he also samples all the culinary creations such as crab cakes in Maryland, peaches in Georgia, and bratwurst in Wisconsin to name a few.
State Plate is on family-friendly INSP Network and can be found on DISH Network channel 259, Direct TV channel 364, and many cable stations. Visit this site for more channels:
http://www.insp.com/insp-channel-finder/.
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Q. My onions aren't going to store much longer, but I can't use them all. How can I preserve them?
A.
Our answer comes from one of our loyal customers, Hudson England. Read on to find out how he and his family dry and freeze onions for longer storage and later use.
 Frozen Onions: "Recently, we discovered that it is convenient to chop up fresh onions, weigh them into about 10-ounce portions, put them in sandwich-size Ziploc bags, and place them in the freezer. We chop up enough onions to fill the number of bags we will use in six months, as that's about how long they stay fresh in the freezer using this method. My wife is often in a hurry when preparing meals and loves the convenience of grabbing a bag of pre-chopped onions when cooking."
Dried Onions: "We dry other onions in our food dryer for longer storage for use in soups and other dishes."
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A Great Tip from Dixondale
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We've got a great tip for you folks.
Our family has been clearing land for over a century as we are always looking for virgin land to grow our onion transplants to ensure disease-free plants. We root-plow the land, rake the brush into piles, and burn the brush. Every spot where we burn the brush produces the most beautiful, darkest green onions. The reason is that the wood ashes are rich in phosphorous and potassium (K20), and these minerals are in a form that the plant can immediately take up.
Wood ashes are beneficial in soil with a pH of 7.0 or lower since they will increase the alkalinity of your soil. A rate of 10 gallons of ash in 1,000 square feet will give you the equivalent of three pounds of K20 and 10 lbs of lime. Be sure to burn brush from hardwoods like oak, mesquite, or maple. Charcoal or treated softwood, like pine or fir, will not offer the same results. Check your pH, and if you have acidic soil, save ashes from your fireplace this winter and apply them to your onion patch about two weeks prior to planting your onions.
Send Us Your Photos
We enjoy receiving photos from our customers, including those of award-winning Dixondale onions. We'd love to publish yours in an upcoming newsletter. Just e-mail your onion photos to
[email protected] along with a description and your city. You
may see one or more of your photos in a future newsletter or even in our print catalog!
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New This Season!
Onion Growing Success Kits
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| We now offer Onion Growing Success Kits, so you have products ready for each phase of an onion's growing cycle. Each kit treats approximately 10 bunches, and includes step-by-step growing instructions to ensure bumper crops in the onion patch.
Onion Growing Success Kit
We've gathered our products to help make you a successful onion grower!
$59.95; SAVE 20%
* Start plants out and establish root systems with our exclusive Dixondale Farms Onion Special 10-20-10 fertilizer.
* Perform pre-emergent weed control at planting time with Treflan Herbicide Granules.
* Boost nitrogen levels with Ammonium Sulfate
three weeks after planting for more rings and larger bulbs.
*Use Mancozeb Fungicide with Zinc to control moisture-related issues.
All Natural Onion Growing Success Kit
Grow a healthy onion crop using all natural products in our All Natural Onion Growing Success Kit!
$62.95; SAVE 20%
*Our exclusive Dixondale Farms All Natural Weed & Feed 3-5-3 is perfect for pre-emergent prevention of weed germination.
*Applying
OmegaGrow Foliar Feed two weeks after planting adds nitrogen to soil for top results.
*
Oxidate Organic Fungicide Preventative and Curative addresses moisture-related issues.
*
AzaGuard Organic Insecticide controls over 300 species of bad bugs.
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Cooking With Onions
Roasted Onions with Herb Butter Sauce
Place onions in a baking dish, season with salt and pepper. Cover and bake at 400 degrees F for one hour or until onions are tender.
While onions are roasting, prepare this simple herb butter sauce: Trim leaves from fresh herbs such as sage, thyme, oregano or marjoram. In a small skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add the fresh herbs and stir until butter begins to brown and the herbs are crispy. Be careful not to burn butter or herbs!
When onions are soft, remove from oven and carefully cut in half from top to bottom.
Serve with herb butter sauce. Makes 8 servings.
Recipe and photo provided by the
National Onion Association
. If you have an onion recipe you'd like us to print, please email it to [email protected]
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One of our employees packed her first box November 7, and she posted this photo to her Facebook page. We thought it was great for her to share her pride in her job with friends. It also lets customers know how much the guys and gals packing the orders take time and pride as they are packing.
Marivel Garza posted: "My first order for today [November 7, 2016] at work. They look great! They are going to Hawaii."
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Onion Plant Ordering and Shipping
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Contact us at 830-876-2430 or visit our
Web site
to make your onion plant purchases.
The shipping schedule for the rest of the month is November 14-20 and November 28-December 4 for the southernmost regions of the USA. To see when your plants will ship, visit our
shipping page and enter the first three digits of your Zip Code.
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All Your Questions Answered
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| We have answers to your frequently asked questions! Just click the link for information on planting, caring, feeding, harvesting, and storing onions.
And be sure to review our short videos on Facebook. Topics range from fertilizing and dealing with cold weather to how onion plants are harvested. You can view these videos even if you don't have a Facebook account. |
As the largest and oldest onion plant farm in the U.S., Dixondale Farms offers a wide selection of top-quality, disease-free, ready-to-plant onion plants. To see our complete product line or get growing tips and cultural information, visit our
Web site
.
New customer? Order your 2017 catalog
here.
We're available from 8:15 AM to 5:00 PM CT at 830-876-2430, or e-mail us at
[email protected]
.
Whether you're planting one bunch or thousands of acres, we're committed to your success.
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We invite you to join the community on our
Facebook page
. You can connect with us and fellow growers to share stories, photos, recipes, weather information, and other tips.
And don't forget to find us on
YouTube and subscribe to our videos where Bruce will guide you on selecting the right onion variety, applying fertilizer, the best weed control options, and more.
We're on Pinterest too. Check out
our Pins
which include photos covering small space onion gardens, tasty onion recipes, planting tips, and more.
You can also join us on
Instagram, a photo community where we're sharing even more Dixondale photos.
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