Onions from seed.

[BertieFox]

What are people's views on onion sets rather than seeds, if you are just growing a standard variety. I always start onions from seed too and then carefully prick on seedlings and keep them growing until planting out in spring.
What's made me think about it is this. Packet of onion seed, around 2,50 euros. Supermarket bag of good sets around 3,50 euros.
My bag contained 170 onion sets, all in perfect condition (very rare nowadays). I have potted each one into a small pot of 'recycled' compost in the polytunnel to get into growth. My calculation is that I can plant them out really early as soon as they have a well developed root system and protect the tops from frost with fleece while hardening them off.
Now with seeds, I would have had to use a little heat to germinate. 170 seedlings would also have taken a lot of time and fiddly effort to transplant into modules. When I wanted to plant these out they would be very far behind the sets.
Of course, it may be all my sets will go up to seed as soon as I stick them outside.
What do others think?

[LOUBLOU1]

Thanks for the pics of the stakes AP and the instructions. We started our Kelsae's off last November so hoping for some good sized ones. they really need potting on - A job for the weekend I think. Best start making some stakes. Have you had any success with Ailsa craig's?

Thanks

Lou

[Aberdeenplotter]

What are people's views on onion sets rather than seeds, if you are just growing a standard variety. I always start onions from seed too and then carefully prick on seedlings and keep them growing until planting out in spring.
What's made me think about it is this. Packet of onion seed, around 2,50 euros. Supermarket bag of good sets around 3,50 euros.
My bag contained 170 onion sets, all in perfect condition (very rare nowadays). I have potted each one into a small pot of 'recycled' compost in the polytunnel to get into growth. My calculation is that I can plant them out really early as soon as they have a well developed root system and protect the tops from frost with fleece while hardening them off.
Now with seeds, I would have had to use a little heat to germinate. 170 seedlings would also have taken a lot of time and fiddly effort to transplant into modules. When I wanted to plant these out they would be very far behind the sets.
Of course, it may be all my sets will go up to seed as soon as I stick them outside.
What do others think?

Bertie, would you maybe start a new thread with that question? This thread is specifically about onions grown from seed

[Aberdeenplotter]

Thanks for the pics of the stakes AP and the instructions. We started our Kelsae's off last November so hoping for some good sized ones. they really need potting on - A job for the weekend I think. Best start making some stakes. Have you had any success with Ailsa craig's?

Thanks Lou

never grown them but I do grow ailsae which is a cross between kelsae and ailsa craig. Superb onion.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Next epistle will be on preparation of the ground in the polytunnel. I'll post some pics with that to let you see what I do there but basically it's a question of digging in some fym and a handful of growmore per squ metre and then preparing for planting.

For those of you growing to harvest in pots, that mix I posted yesterday contains all the feed they will be getting except perhaps some liquid seaweed if they look as though they need a boost. To give them anything more than that is likely to lead to premature ripening before they achieve maximum size.

So you folks will have plenty of time to prepare and because I could get busy workwise at any time and not have so much time to while away on this forum, I'm now going to give you the next epistle.


Onions are gross feeders and I dig the beds in my tunnel (2 x 25ft x 4ft) as I dig any other bed but I dig in as much fym as I can get my hands on. This helps not just with nutrition but helps retain mositure within the beds. I also throw down some granular fertiliser, (I use vitax q4 but growmore or similar will work just as well )a handful every 3 ft or so and also a similar application of blood fish and bone. That then gets well worked in with a hand cultivator.

I then insert three empty 6" pots per row, rows 20" apart, first pot in centre of bed with the other two equidistant between centre and edge of beds. It will become clearer from the pics below.(The empty pots are the same size as the final pots my plants will be potted in to and when I plant out, this enables me to remove the onions from their pots and plant out with a minimum of effort and with no disturbance to the root systems.) I then put down my leaky hose which will be used to water the plants later and finally a sheet of polythene, black on one side, white on the other, white side down so that the black will absorb heat and warm the beds ready for planting as well as preventing evaporation of moisture. The ploythene is turned white side up at planting time so that it reflects sunlight and keeps the heat down and of course the black side down suppresses weed growth.

plot dug and mucked

pots inserted and leaky hose installed

covered with black and white polythene


Next epistle will show a few pics of the onions planted out and staked.

[Piggle]

Thanks AP. I pricked mine out today and raided my hubby's bonsai wire to make the stakes. He was well chuffed as you can imagine.

[Bigmallly]

Staked?...................Bladdy hell AP, I hope you are talking a month down the line, I've only got piddling little seedlings.......

[Potstubsdustbins]

12 out 0f 15 germinated so far.

They are now in the grow light garden.

Potty.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Staked?...................Bladdy hell AP, I hope you are talking a month down the line, I've only got piddling little seedlings.......

More than a month matey, mine won't go into the tunnel till April but I wanted to give you guys plenty of time to get your ground prepared . No point in waiting till the last minute and then dropping a load of work on you.

Edit Note.

Take note that you don't have to grow your onions in a tunnel or a greenhouse. They will grow perfectly well outside. They won't grow so big or as quickly but they will grow to a decent size.

[SeleneMourie]

Id just like to say that we are following the lord of the Onions AP here in North Wales
We have not commented yet as we keep running off following instructions!
We are a couple of weeks behind and just waiting for them to 'pop up' any day now. We have only every grown a pack of onion sets from pound land that had about 20 in and we planted them at the 'wrong' time of year so this is ace

[Bigmallly]

[QUOTE=Aberdeenplotter;1077450]More than a month matey, mine won't go into the tunnel till April but I wanted to give you guys plenty of time to get your ground prepared .


Phew!..........Panic over...........I wasn't panicking really.......

[Aberdeenplotter]

Again,thinking in front so don't get alarmed with timescales, once your seedlings outgrow the wire loop stakes you will need something bigger and more substantial. Split canes with soft twine work great but these large onions can grow in height by 4" overnight so using them would mean a lot of opening and retying. I use plastic clips which can be seen here. Search results for: 'plant support clips'. They are available from medwyn's of Anglesey or indeed on ebay see here 100 x Plant Support Clips11cm Canes/Flower Sticks | eBay. Alternatively, you can use an electrical tie wrap, with the ends worked in behind the ends of the springs in clothes pegs to form a loop and move that peg up a cane as necesary.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Thanks AP I just hope I get that far down the line I will need some.

Potty

[Aberdeenplotter]

it's amazing how they come on once they start matey.

[amandaandherveg]

I joined in too with Ailsa Craig and Bedfordshire Champion sown 12 days ago. They're coming along nicely but the Unwins Exhibition (sown the same day) have failed to show. To be fair they were 4 years out of date.

Waiting for my fluorescent fitting to arrive from eBay so I can finish off my homemade grow light.