Varieties of Intermediate Day Onions

Yellow Onions

• One of the most well-known onions of this class is the Walla Walla onion, named for the city of Walla Walla, Washington. This large, sweet onion is eagerly awaited in produce sections and farmer's markets but is best for fresh eating as it doesn't store well. Candy, Yellow Sweet Spanish and Cimarron are all large varieties with medium storage capacity. Dorata Di Parmi is a large Italian type that has short-term storage. Borrettana is also Italian, but is small and stores very well.

Red Onions

• Red onions are great for fresh eating and have a mild sweet flavor. They lose their red coloring when cooked. Most have a storing capacity of four to six months. Red Candy Apple and Cabernet Red have large, flat globe-shaped onions, Cabernet Red being a bit darker red and a little smaller. Red Emperor and Redwing are both very dark red. Redwing is almost purple and has very glossy skin. Red Amposta is a large onion with copper-red skin.

White Onions

• White onions are usually a little more pungent and less sweet than the yellow or red onions. Superstar is a great onion for almost all areas of the U.S. It's globe shaped and stores for about two months. Alabaster is early maturing, has a globe shape and a mild flavor. White Portugal has a large, flattened globe shape, has a mild flavor and is a great multi-purpose onion. It can also be used as a bunching onion when young.

Heirlooms

• There are some wonderful red heirlooms out of Italy, where they are generally smaller and store better. Some red varieties include Piatta d'Italia and Flat of Italy. Both have flat pinkish red bulbs, but Piatta d'Italia is larger and Flat of Italy is smaller. Tropeana Tonda is large and both Rossa Lunga di Firenze and Italian Red Torpedo have elongated red bulbs, making them good for bunching. A nice yellow-skinned heirloom variety from Australia is simply called Australian Brown. It has a medium-sized, flattened bulb and is flavorful and pungent.