Questions about Onion Sets.

[veggiechicken]

For all you Wise Grapes -
1. Can you tell me how an onion set is produced?

2. Whether I can "grow" them from seed?

3. Why there are just a few varieties of sets for sale?

[Thelma Sanders]

1 By sowing onion seed in late summer, and after about 8 weeks folding down the tops to force them to make small bulbs, which are lifted and dried for spring planting.
2 Yes you can - it's just a way of making a biennial plant into an annual if you buy sets.
3 I'm not certain but think that not all varieties respond to growing this way, some are more prone to bolting than others.

[veggiechicken]

Many thanks Thelma I feel an experiment coming on

[Thelma Sanders]

tell us more...............

[veggiechicken]

...........making it up as I go along
Something like a pinch of every onion/shallot seed I can lay my hands on, sown in modules, now, and see whether I can turn them into sets to grow on next year.
I'm also going to replant all the tiddly little onions that aren't worth peeling - even though they will bolt. Pulled early they should still be usable.
If I don't try, I'll never know

[teakdesk]

...........making it up as I go along
Something like a pinch of every onion/shallot seed I can lay my hands on, sown in modules, now, and see whether I can turn them into sets to grow on next year.
I'm also going to replant all the tiddly little onions that aren't worth peeling - even though they will bolt. Pulled early they should still be usable.
If I don't try, I'll never know

Good Luck!

If you want to go the whole hog you can try heat treating the lifted bulbs over winter by keeping in a small propagator with a temperature around 25degC for about three months. This will kill off many of the flower stems that are are forming in the set and stop it from bolting next year.

[veggiechicken]

An update!
On 20th August I sowed approx 12 onion seeds of the following varieties in modules. Some old seeds have failed to germinate. I've potted on most of the seedlings - the number shows how many!!:-

Marco 8
Supasweet 11
Ramata di Milano 14!!
Texas Early Grano 4
Tropea Rossa 7
Rossa di Toscana 2
Bedfordshire Champion 15!!
Long Red Florence 6
Australian Crown. - FAILED
Red Baron - FAILED

Figaro Shallots 8
Matador Shallot FAILED

Also Spring/ Bunching onions (left in modules)
Kyoto Market
Purplette
Ishikura
Winter White Bunching
Redmate
Welsh

I've no idea what the next stage will be - its all an experiment

[veggiechicken]

Part 2

Don't ask what happened to the onions in 2014 'cos I can't remember

However, I've seen some advice about growing your own onion sets and thought I might give it a try next June. I will make a note in my new Diary

As we are no longer able to offer Santero Onion Sets, we suggest it is possible to produce your own sets, sow seed into seed tray in the middle of June and keep watering until the onions have reached set size, at this stage stop watering and allow to dry off. When dry, thin off withered stems and store sets in a cool dry position in a seed tray ready for planting the following spring.

[SelkirkAlex]

if your in the mood for experimenting.............
the other day a friend brought me about a dozen 3" square pots with kelsae onion seedlings to grow on. they are already about 10" tall. he didn't grow them from seeds, he used vegatative (spelling) transplant growing them from pips the same way as the championship leek growers do.

just for interests sake kelsae or kelso is just down the road and this chap recalls that many many moons ago his grand dad worked at the nursery where the kelsae onion was created