tips please for growing huge onions!

[VeggieNut]

I've just planted out some Unwins Exhibition onions grown from seed sown on Boxing day.
Don't really know when or whether I should feed them, and what with?
I'm having a friendly competition with some friends to grow the heaviest onion, I lost badly last year so want to do better this year

help please!

[zazen999]

Is this for 2010?

To get really big onions you have to start before boxing day.

How big are they and what are you growing them in? Are they under cover or open to the elements?

[lottie dolly]

aahaaa,I think it's VEGMAN DAN,has a very good blog ??,and he grows very big one's,i have posted this without searching,so only hope am right,or it's head in sand,

[chriscross1966]

Exhibition isn't really that big an onion, it's a very good shape for such a big onion but in the scheme of biggies it isn't really that enormous. Robinsons Mammoth, Kelsae and Exhibition Seeds Aislae are a fair amount bigger..... that said it's bigger than a "normal" onion. It wants really fertile soil, with plenty of organic matter worked into it, right now there's almost no such thing as too much nitrogen so get busy with the dried blood or ammonium nitrate (if you can get it) plus it's definitely got a use for significant amounts of phosphate so bone meal is good, come July switch to tomato food cos it will want the potash to harden up....

chrisc

[phil the shed]

aahaaa,I think it's VEGMAN DAN,has a very good blog ??,and he grows very big one's,i have posted this without searching,so only hope am right,or it's head in sand,

your right lottie it is vegman dan the large show onion man
he's got a blog somewhere.........

[lottie dolly]

your right lottie it is vegman dan the large show onion man
he's got a blog somewhere.........

i just had a look,no idea how to post a thread,but,go up top of page to comunity,and you will find it on there,it's not a blog but allotement diary,well worth a look at

[VeggieNut]

Is this for 2010?

To get really big onions you have to start before boxing day.

How big are they and what are you growing them in? Are they under cover or open to the elements?

HI,
My onions are about pencil thickness now and I've planted them outside in good garden soil with lots of muck!

I'm not really after monster onions just as big as I can get.

[zazen999]

Ok.

And this is my take on the challenge....

What I'd do is to take out the biggest 3 and put them each in a biggish pot [about the width you would like your onion to be], and fill with compost mixed with organic root veg fertiliser. Then keep the 3 pots either in a warm greenhouse or in a coldframe outside. Every couple of days, pour water into the saucer or tray and let them soak up as much water as they want. Then pour away what's left after 30 mins.

The rest, I'd sprinkle some of the above fertiliser around them, and hand rake it in gently. Then, I'd put half under a cloche or something and water twice a week if if gets really warm.

Then you are hedging your bets, giving all 3 lots the best chance possible and keeping them warm to grow as big as you can.

Then, in a couple of months, sow for next year and keep the best few going all winter in a greenhouse/polytunnel or coldframe.

[VeggieNut]

wow, thanks for that.
Guess they like it quite warm then.
Also I didn't realise they got sown so early, lots of tips there, thanks again.

[zazen999]

DO have a look at Veg Man Dan's blog; you can see it through a link in my blog ,as below....it's the one that mentions the huge onions [natch]...