onions

[jacob]

OK, serves me right for being pleased earlier...

I've noticed that a number of my onions are sticking out flower spikes. Beds Champ grown from seed (not sets) sown in Feb. Questions.... a) is this normal (it's not happened to me before with seed)? b) if I chop off the flower spike will I get any more swelling in the onions? c) Anything obvious that I might have done wrong?

[Skotch]

I've had a similar thing happen with my Ailsa Craig onions also grown from seed sown in January - a lot of them have thrown up seed heads - its not happened to me with this variety before - I think it may have something to do with the abnormally dry weather we had earlier this year

[BUFFS]

just pinch off the flower heads as they will put all their goodness into flowering if you dont,they wont keep over winter having tried to flower,so use them up first...enjoy..

[Aberdeenplotter]

Onions will bolt if the plant has been stressed and that stress can be caused by a shortage of water or extremes (high and low) in temperature. So grow in humous rich soil and keep as cool as possible if growing under cover. I use black and white polythene(with a seap hose below), white side up which reflects the heat and also suppresses weeds

[BUFFS]

Onions will bolt if the plant has been stressed and that stress can be caused by a shortage of water or extremes (high and low) in temperature. So grow in humous rich soil and keep as cool as possible if growing under cover. I use black and white polythene(with a seap hose below), white side up which reflects the heat and also suppresses weeds

shortage of water? i have heard about them,but not seen one..

[jacob]

Ta all. I've nipped off the spikes (about 20% so far, but I'm reckoning they'll all go). Still a bit frustrated though, as I thought this wasn't supposed to happen from seed. They had a very dry start (though I watered a fair bit), but recently it has just been cool and wet here, not that stressful, I wouldn't have thought...

[BUFFS]

jacob,when you watered them in their dry start,you really need to soak the ground,so the roots go down for moisture not up for surface moisture,i had this problem when i started growing veg while living in surrey,old neighbour told me to soak once a week,not to moisten each day,and i found he was right,those old guys really did know what they were doing...

[jacob]

I *thought* I had watered them heavily! I got an OK crop of last year and thought I'd finally cracked seed onions, but I'm not feeling so clever now. Still, let's see what gets harvested...