onions bolting

[Rich75]

.. a few of my onions have got little flower buds coming.. is there anything i can do to stop them flowering.. had a look on the internet but they all basically say that the flowering onions are done for

[T-lady]

Hey rich75

In my experience bolting onions are still ok. Snap off the flower heads (some people cook them) and let them carry on doing their thing. The problem is they won't store will so just make sure that you use these ones first.

[Rich75]

thanks.. i read somewhere that if you snap the heads off though, you get rain water down the open tube and that can rot your onion?.. maybe i could bend them over and tie off the hole?

[Pumpkin Becki]

My autumn planted sets are starting to bolt too.

Fortunately they had made sufficient size in the good weather to make them worth harvesting.

It was raining when I lifted them, so I've taken them home, put them on a wire cooling rack, and placed them on a sunny window sill to dry off. I don't know whether they will store at all, but its worth a go, and at least I only had five or six to pull up, and being Autumn sets, they are meant to be ready in a couple of weeks anyway.

[Mikey]

Fear for survival it is, did you start them off in trays or straight into the ground. I had to bend over about a dozen or so of mine last night, I just pinched them over rather than stap them off. Mind you the slugs are making more holes in them that I ever could.

[rustylady]

Nip out the flower buds. The plants will carry on developing, but the ones that have started to bolt won't store well.

[HeyWayne]

Some of mine have started doing this too - looks a bit like Red Square...

Actually, it is only the red onions that are doing it. Maybe they're Russian onions?

[lfcjohn]

Its the reds

Like Wayne all my red onions are the same,i have just pinched out the bud and they see fine