Flowering onions

[PossibleBoris]

As a naive novice, myself and Mrs Boris bought a few seed packets last year - including onion seeds - and chucked them in a small plot in the garden around April/May 2010.

We've both been bitten by the bug since then, and as the onions still weren't ready by winter, we transferred them to a large pot and left them overwinter. Now the onions are starting to flower - should I leave them to get on with it, or are they ready to pull up?

Thanks all

[gregorach]

By the time they're flowering, they're not much use as onions. Sorry.

The onion is a biennial - it get started one year, lays down some stored energy in its bulb, shuts down for winter, and then flowers the next year. It's very difficult (if not impossible) to get an onion to grow a large enough bulb to be useful in the first year, and if you leave it to its own devices, it'll put all of its energy into flowering in the second year. So what you need to do to grow nice big onions is trick them - you lift and dry them before the first frost, keep them somewhere warm and dry over the winter, and then replant them the following year once the worst frosts have passed. This tricks the onion into thinking that it's still in its first growing year, so it just keeps growing a bigger bulb rather than trying to flower (if you've done it right).

Right now you're probably thinking "that sounds like a lot of hassle"... And that's why most people don't grow onions from seed. Instead, they pay somebody else to do the first bit, and just buy "sets", which are nothing more than small onion bulbs which have been grown the previous year.

Still, if they're an open-pollinated variety and they're not getting in the way, you might as well let them flower, save the seed, and try again.

[Odsox]

Hmm, not sure I agree Dunc. Sure you can do all that if you want to, but why would you want to ?

First off flowering onions, as long as they haven't actually flowered yet they are still edible.
If you only have a few, chop them up and use them or saute them and freeze some, or if you have lots try drying them sliced for rehydrating in winter stews, as the flower stem stays soft until the flower head opens.
Growing onions from seed is relatively easy and a darn site cheaper than sets and far more choice in varieties, and in my experience those from seed store a lot longer too.
The trick is to start them early, January or February either multiple sown in cells or in a seed tray and then prick them out. That's the way I usually grow them and by the end of September they will be as big as those grown from sets.

[niknik]

Useful info.........I had no idea!

Basically only managed a few small ones last year ( now I know why ) althogh pulling them up to have as spring onions in salads won´t have helped either!


I still have a few of last years( in containers) gowing to seed, and though edible, they´re not very big anyway.

This years are doing really well, no prizes for size, but goood decent size already, and plenty of them.

I plant from seedlings from the market. somewhere between 40-60 for 1 euro.
I have tried from seeds. but nothing coming up at all so far!

[gregorach]

The trick is to start them early, January or February either multiple sown in cells or in a seed tray and then prick them out. That's the way I usually grow them and by the end of September they will be as big as those grown from sets.

That's all very well if you've got the growing season for it. We're not all blessed with your combination of climate and polytunnels.

[gregorach]

As for storage, I've still got a few from last year's maincrop (Sturton Globe) and they're still perfectly good...

[Odsox]

The trick is to start them early, January or February either multiple sown in cells or in a seed tray and then prick them out. That's the way I usually grow them and by the end of September they will be as big as those grown from sets.

That's all very well if you've got the growing season for it. We're not all blessed with your combination of climate and polytunnels.

Maybe, but you didn't specify that this is way to grow onions above the Arctic circle
However, a polytunnel or greenhouse is not necessary providing you have a nice bright windowsill indoors, they are slow growing to start with (hence the early start) and by April they can be hardened off and planted outside, long before they take over your living room.

[PossibleBoris]

Thanks for the replies, I think I'll pull a few at the weekend and see what I can do with them in the kitchen, the rest I might leave to flower purely for decoration.

When they didn't produce bulbs at the back end of last summer, I bought sets and put them in the ground early this year - they're coming along nicely in the plot.

[PossibleBoris]

I have recently used the onions, and whilst they weren't full size they were perfectly fine to eat.

One tip - don't eat the flowers. I smelt of onion all weekend....

[grahamhobbs]

Ok I live in London, but I sow my onion seed near the end of January and once the seedlings are up they go straight outside. Any heat seems to make them weak. In fact they seem quite tough and do not need even a cold frame in central London, although in colder areas they might. By mid-april they are big enough to plant out properly. They are generally ready to lift a couple of weeks after those grown from sets, for me this is the end of August.
Although those grown from seed tend to be a bit smaller than from sets, I agree with Odsox, it is cheaper and there is more variety available (including stonking big exhibition varieties if you feel the need to impress).

[Annpan]

The bees love alium (onion) flowers and they look lovely too.

Only long tounged bees can reach the nectar so it is one of the few types of flower that will guarantee the more prolific short-tounged bees haven't gobbled up before the long tounged bees have a chance.

So even if you can't save the seed they are still worth having around

[Thomzo]

Thanks for all the info. Mine have flowered as well and now I know why. Will try a combination of saving some seed and pulling the rest.

Zoe