onions no chance ?

[Sharpy]

From the RHS

"Water if the weather is dry and give an occasional feed with a general liquid fertiliser. A light feed of sulphate of potash in June will help ripen the bulbs ready for storage."

[Martin H]

From the RHS

"Water if the weather is dry and give an occasional feed with a general liquid fertiliser. A light feed of sulphate of potash in June will help ripen the bulbs ready for storage."

Yeah but what does the RHS know!

I was in the garden centre shop at Wisley last month and they were selling carrot seedlings in modules. Not stump-rooted ones, either!

Seriously though, these specific onions need to do some serious growing. Nitrogen is what they need most just now. Ripening can come later.

[Sharpy]

So believe nothing we read then ;-)

[fishpond]

It depends on how you read it.

[kathyd]

My onions look exactly like yours captain - although my excuse is that they're surrounded by weeds I've not yanked out yet! - but I'm going to just leave them and hope. I wonder what would happen if you re-planted into large pots since you need to planting space? I've never tried transplanting onions but it might be worth a try with a few, as an experiment, if you do decide to pull them up?

[starloc]

So believe nothing we read then ;-)

Quite often its just some old saying being written down, they tried nothing else or maybe tried nothing!

The problem with gardening is some people try to work to a schedule and it never works well, so many variables

The weather changes so much as do varieties , you can only do things by looking at a plant, knowing when it needs something, months to do this and that just dont ever work!

Weather has changed so much since the 1940`s when many books where published ( that are the word of got to many expert gardeners ) , they can not plant by the same months now due to climate change

Nitrogen makes the onions grow, they would also probably assume that the onions have grown, or already have high nitrogen in the soil

The more nitrogen the more leaves, for every leaf you have a ring of onion, once they have grown you can help....( not make or force them ) to ripen by adding more potash

Its like putting drainage... `crocks` in the bottom of pots to make things stay dry....there are hundreds of studies by scientists proving they make the pot wetter....although people on TV and in books still say to do it as someone standing in a field of mud told them to do it 50 years ago....as that is how its always been done

[Jay22]

So would chucking in your old coffee grounds add enough nitrogen?

[starloc]

They add nitrogen , but im not sure how quickly, at this time of year you could do with adding it quickly with a high nitrogen general feed or something higher nitrogen like ammonium sulfate, ammonium nitrate (dont think you can buy that in the UK?)....blood.....

[Bill HH]

I would remove that membrane for a start, and get some water to them, then either miracle grow or chicken pellets.I think there is still potential for them.