Onion variety
✓ In your garden
Red Burgundy is the mild, sweet red onion for Southern gardens — a deep-burgundy, flattened globe with white, red-ringed flesh that's pleasant raw on a burger or in a salsa. The single most important thing about it is day length: it's a short-day onion, so it bulbs on the far South's shorter days and simply fails up north, where long summer days push it to bulb before it's big enough. The other honest notes: it's only a moderate keeper, and the red is skin-deep, not solid through.
“A mild, sweet short-day red for Southern gardens — plant it much north of about 35–36°N and you'll get scallions, not bulbs.”
Mild and sweet with low-to-moderate pungency when fresh — pleasant raw in salads, salsa, and on burgers, with a deep burgundy skin that looks the part on the plate.
A dependable short-day red for the far South, and it's often listed as resistant to pink root — a real edge if that common soilborne onion disease is a problem in your beds.
It's a SHORT-day onion — it starts bulbing at only ~10–12 hours of daylight, which suits the far South (below ~35–36°N). Grown too far north, long summer days trigger bulbing on a tiny plant, so you get marble-sized bulbs or none. That mismatch is the single most common way to waste a season with this onion.
A mild sweet red is only a moderate-to-poor keeper — plan to eat it within weeks to a couple months, and its pungency can climb in storage. And the 'red' is skin-deep: sliced, it's white flesh with red-edged rings, not solid red, and cooking mutes the color further.
A reliable, pretty mild red — as long as you're far enough south and eat it fresh.
Numbers from university growing guides. Ratings are our take, judged against all onions. Tap a meter to see why.
Red Burgundy grows like any other onion. The full picture — how deep to plant, spacing, feeding, pests, harvest — lives on the Onion page so it's maintained in one place.
Our take, from how it grows and eats — kitchens vary.
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Want the full 10/50/90% odds + nearest stations? Open the frost tool →Greenhouse or cover on: your start slides ~4 weeks earlier and your harvest stretches ~3 weeks later (shown striped).
Planting seeds straight in the ground only works where the season's long and warm — most gardeners start seeds indoors or buy young plants, or you'd pick your first tomato right as frost hits.
Comfortable — first ripe fruit lands around late May, well before your typical frost (~late Oct).
Typical dates for zone 6b — set your zone or ZIP above for yours.
Interplanted onions confused carrot rust fly in some trials and did nothing in others. Worth a try, not a bet.
Chart canon, both directions.
Old chart pairing; both hold cool-season beds.
On the classic charts — lettuce's own row lists onions.
Chart canon says onions and garlic make good tomato neighbors. No trials to point at, no conflict either.
The most consistent 'no' in companion planting. Unproven, unanimous.
Same flag as beans — every chart agrees.
The badge is the honesty. Trialed = a published field trial · Practical = a real mechanism · Traditional = companion-chart lore. These pairings hold for every onion.
Pairings compiled from University of Minnesota Extension, West Virginia University Extension.
From university growing guides (see Sources).
Red Burgundy is an open-pollinated heirloom red bulb onion, sold widely in the U.S. Southern-onion trade as a short-day type. It's an old open-pollinated variety rather than a modern hybrid.
In the interest of honesty: the exact breeder and country of origin aren't well documented in extension literature, so treat any single 'invented in year X' claim you see with skepticism. What's solid and useful is how it grows — and that's all about day length.
The bulb is a good-looking red: dark red to burgundy papery skin, deep-colored rather than pale or pinkish, on a flattened globe about 3 to 4 inches across (squatter than a tall globe onion), medium-to-large by short-day standards.
Here's the honest visual catch, though. Cut it open and it's off-white to white flesh with concentric red-to-purple rings — the color lives in the skin and the ring edges, not solid through the flesh. It looks great raw, but if you were picturing wall-to-wall red inside, it isn't that, and cooking mutes the color further.
Onions bulb in response to day length, and Red Burgundy is a SHORT-day onion: it starts making a bulb once days reach only about 10 to 12 hours. That suits the far South — extension sources put short-day territory at roughly latitudes 25–35°, below about 36°N.
Grown too far north, it fails, and this is the single most common way to waste a season with it. Long northern summer days trigger bulbing on a tiny, immature plant, so you get marble-sized bulbs or none at all. If you're north of about 36°N, plant a long-day type instead — the exact mirror of why a northern sweet onion like Walla Walla fails in the South. Get the day-length match right and Red Burgundy is easy.
Red Burgundy is a mild, sweet red, and that comes with the usual tradeoff: it's only a moderate-to-poor keeper. Short-day sweet onions run high in sugar and water, so plan to eat these within weeks to a couple of months rather than holding them all winter like a sharp, pungent storage onion. Their bite can also climb the longer they're stored.
So cure them well after harvest, but treat them as eat-soon onions. One genuine plus, not a catch: Red Burgundy is often listed as resistant to pink root, a common soilborne onion disease — a real edge if that's shown up in your beds before.
Match the day-length type to your latitude first — that decides whether you get bulbs at all. Start seed indoors about 8–10 weeks before your last frost, or use transplants; in the Deep South, transplant in late winter (late February is typical) for a late-spring or early-summer harvest.
Give it full sun and fertile, well-drained soil with steady moisture, space plants 3–4 inches apart, and keep them weeded, since shallow roots lose to weeds and bulbs stay small if neglected. One caution: overwintered short-day onions can bolt (go to seed) if plants get too large going into winter cold, so time transplants to be pencil-thin, not thick, before a hard cold snap. Ease off watering as the tops fall over, then cure the bulbs 2–3 weeks in a dry, airy, shaded spot.
Red Burgundy is at its best fresh and raw — sliced onto salads, sandwiches, and burgers, or diced into salsa and pico, where its mild sweetness and burgundy color both show. It grills and roasts nicely too, bringing the sweetness forward, and it sautés fine for everyday cooking (just know the color fades when cooked).
Because the flesh is off-white with red rings rather than solid red, it does its best color work raw — as a garnish or a slice on the plate — rather than in a long-simmered dish. Use it as your fresh red for the months right after harvest.
| Type | Short Day |
|---|---|
| Days to ripe | 100 days after you plant it outside |
| Color | Red |
Extra fields from seed-catalog listings and university growing guides. Days to ripe and disease resistance shift with your climate and seed source — double-check with your local extension office before you buy.
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Not well — it's a short-day onion, so up north the long summer days trigger bulbing on a tiny plant and you get marble-sized bulbs or none. It's built for the far South (below about 35–36°N), where shorter days let it bulb properly. Northern gardeners should plant a long-day red onion instead; this mismatch is the top reason the crop fails.
No — the red is skin-deep. Cut it open and it's white to off-white flesh with red-to-purple concentric rings; the color lives in the skin and the ring edges, not through the whole flesh, and cooking mutes it further. It looks great raw as a garnish, but it won't give you wall-to-wall red inside.
Only moderately — it's a mild, sweet red, high in sugar and water, so plan to eat it within weeks to a couple of months rather than holding it all winter like a sharp storage onion. Its pungency can also increase in storage. Cure the bulbs well, but treat them as eat-soon onions.
In the Deep South, transplant in late winter — late February is typical — for a late-spring to early-summer harvest, or start seed indoors about 8–10 weeks before your last frost. Give it full sun, steady water, and diligent weeding, and time overwintered transplants to stay pencil-thin before hard cold so they don't bolt.
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