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Ok, next daft question for the oracle at large... my onions are looking great but a few of them have started developing flower buds. I'm pretty sure this is bad.
Can I just nip the flower buds off and let the onions continue growing and harvest them to store, or now that they've decided to try flowering is that it for those particular onions in terms of development and potential for storing?

Mine do it but it's usually red onions which are more prone to it. It's nearly always dry here so not surprising. They won't store so pull them up and use them in cooking over the next few weeks. (not that I've done so far with mine - 3 gone to seed so far).

The bees (especially native long-tounged bees - apparently) love onion flowers, and they look lovely.

What I do is leave them to flower, and possibly pollinate and then you see tiny onions develop around the flower. I wasn't organised enough last year and never planted these tiny onions but I have left some in from last year specifically for the flowers and seeds.

Thankyou all. I'll leave a couple but nip and pull the others as they happen. fingers crossed my leek efforts are better than last year....

All my onions have little clear bulbous sacs at the top that clearly hold the seeds. They look very pretty but am I right in thinking that eventually the top of the onion plants will flower like Aliums ?

Yes rob, they flower just like Aliums (I think they ARE aliums actually ) last year I had a range of purples, pinks and whites (depending on the variety).... very pretty
Like this one
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowdropsa ... 865131170/

I don't think it's a good idea to save seed from ones that go to seed prematurely, they are more likely to pass this trait on to the next generation.

I usually get a few that go to seed, and they set onions the following year without any problems. I pick them, and use them in dried flower arrangements - just shake the flower head over a paper towel to collect the seeds first, otherwise the seed heads pop and you have tiny black seeds all over the place.