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Wow, that's a lot of autumn planted onions. How many do you plant in spring? How big is your family?
I do about 50 in autumn and 300 in spring. This should last us for the whole year, although this year with the very dry summer the onions were smaller than usual, so our crop won't stretch much beyond christmas.

SusieGee, interesting didn't realise the autumn planted onions stored for that long. Need to check that out, because makes a lot of sense to grow more over winter, rather than summer when there is more competition for space.

Regarding onion rot, sorry a little late for bonfire night but try having bonfires on the infected ground, should kill the spores.

Talking about onions, this year I tried some F1 onions, Hercules, waste of time (and money, given extra cost). Alright it was a very dry year, but Hercules was even smaller than usual Sturon.

I planted about 150 Garlic in the 2nd week of Oct.
all Hard neck type,
about 45 Armenian Porcelain and just over 100 Chesnok Red.
I cover them with a thick layer of chopped Cornstock mulch...maybe 10" deep

I've tried growing Grocery store Garlic, I call it California Garlic, since that is where most of the softneck garlic is grown in the US, anyway it gets too cold here...about 90% don't survive the winter.

This year I grew various garlics. I normally grow my own saved garlic, originally shop bought chinese garlic, but this year I also grew Cle d'Or, Germidor, some garlic from Morocco, (all autumn planted) and Thermidrome in spring. Can't say I could see any difference in any of them, except the Moroccan was fractionally smaller, The Chinese and Cle d'Or were ready perhaps 2 weeks ealier than Germidor and the Morrocan, whilst the spring planted Thermidrome was perhaps a month later. Taste wise, sorry I couldn't tell the difference.

This year also trying Solent Wight and Albergesian Wight, the later seems interesting as it has particularly large cloves.

Well I have some kind of red onion rot, they were fine until I pulled them then they've been gradually rotting ever since. A lot never made it to fully drying out even.

Now I've found a fair few of my shallots rotting - thought they were supposed to last for much longer than onions?

I'd already decided to only grow shallots next year instead of onions as they seem to like the heat and dryness better than onions that need too much watering and take up space. Stopped growing ord onions cos of the space involved and they are cheap to buy anyway, whereas red ones are v. expensive.

but if they are going to go off after only 3 or 4 months it's hardly worth growing any more than I did this year.

We can't get any onion sets for planting in autumn here either, which is a huge shame as the ones I got from England one year (Radar, I think) were the most tasty onions I've ever eaten. There's very little choice of spring sets here (abt 2 or 3 varieties ) and they are nearly always the flat bottomed kind which are really hard to cut, and don't taste of anything much.

Millymollymandy wrote:We can't get any onion sets for planting in autumn here either, which is a huge shame as the ones I got from England one year (Radar, I think) were the most tasty onions I've ever eaten. There's very little choice of spring sets here (abt 2 or 3 varieties ) and they are nearly always the flat bottomed kind which are really hard to cut, and don't taste of anything much.

Have you considered growing from seed? A chap I know grows onions from seed in module trays, lifts and dries them when the bulbs reach marble size, and then treats them just like bought sets. Haven't tried it myself, but he seems to know what he's talking about. You get a much better choice of variety and cheaper postage - plus he reckons they do better than bought sets.

Dunc,I 'm confused (sorry) does this bloke grow overwintering jap onions from seed? If so I'd be really interested in varieties,sources,sowing time etc.etc. Thanks ,OJ

Ah, now you're asking... Not sure which varieties he grows by that method.

Just had a quick look at the OGC, they have Senshyu Yellow available as seed. I'm sure you can find them elsewhere cheaper though...

Millymollymandy wrote:I plant garlic in November. We don't have winter onion sets here and garlic sets are only available in the spring so I just sow supermarket or my own garlic (which was originally supermarket garlic ). The silly thing is when the sets of onions, shallots and garlic are available here in the spring the instructions for the shallots and garlic were to sow them in the autumn..... now how dumb is THAT!!!

Anyway it's kind of a good thing as I have nowhere to plant onions now as the veg patch is full of veg!

Thesehttp://www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/shopinfo.aspx do european delivery MMM. I can vouch for theor products as I buy some new stock every year.

Thanks Big Al but it's not garlic I'm after, that's not a problem as I sow my own or supermarket garlic in the autumn. It's Japanese onion sets that I would like to sow. Not that I can this year as I don't have any space for them - only enough room for garlic in the bed that will be alliums next year as there's too much still alive and edible in there right now!

Anyway I am sick of gardening and just want to finish off all the jobs I haven't done yet like planting daffies and other things then put my feet up for the winter - it's been the hardest most exhausting year yet mostly due to drought but also goodish crops of fruit and a ridiculously good tom year so therefore so much preserving needed doing (and still does ). And I was supposed to cut back this year and take things easy.

You can grow japanese onions from seed but they need to be started in July I think, ready for lifting the following June.

MMM, I grow spring planted red onions, Red Baron, lifted in July and they last in store until the following April.

Gregorach's description is exactly how sets are produced, grow from seed lateish summer until 'set' sized, lift and dry off and store over winter, then plant in spring as sets. Alternatively you grow from seed, early in the year, but they don't mature until a bit later than sets. The later this is, you then have to lift them quickly otherwise you can get the problem of them immediately starting back into growth again.

grahamhobbs wrote:MMM, I grow spring planted red onions, Red Baron, lifted in July and they last in store until the following April.

So do I, but this year they have all been rotting ever since they were lifted. And the shallots are starting too.

I can't be bothered with growing little onions to sets, too much like hard work. Some years I can't grow spring onions at all and some years I can, so sod's law dictates they probably wouldn't germinate anyway!