Onions

[Lawa]

Hi all first year trying onions from sets.

About a fortnight ago I was ready to pull them up as they were not doing anything.

Suddenly a few have started to swell. But a few have flowers forming on the tip is this bolting if so are they done for

[Valleyman]

Cut the flowers off the ones bolting (The ones with the thick flower spike) and use them first. They won't store.

At the moment I am harvesting my bolted onions one at a time as they are needed in the kitchen. Those that haven't bolted will be left in the ground until they die back, and then harvested.

[Lawa]

brill thank you tbh I dod not grow many so it will be lift wash and into the pan anyway

[Valleyman]

Excellent... in your situation the only problem with bolting is that it means the onions have pretty much stopped growing. The ones that haven't bolted will continue to swell for another month, so it's still worth harvesting the bolted ones first.

[Lawa]

out the bed into my stir fry tonight then

[Scoot]

Just out of interest, how would you stop them bolting? Plenty of water?

Will this hot weather we are all having mean there's more chance of onions (and anything else really) bolting?

[Valleyman]

Just out of interest, how would you stop them bolting? Plenty of water?

Will this hot weather we are all having mean there's more chance of onions (and anything else really) bolting?

Shear luck it seems to me. Giving them a feed and a good water apparently helps... but i always get some bolted ones whatever I do.

Autumn planted sets always seem to get hit the worst for me, and fluctuating temperatures seem to cause them to bolt more. Like this year we had a warm April and then a cold May. In theory this could trick the onions into thinking they were getting a second winter, so then when it warmed up again in June they threw up flower spikes thinking they were in their second year of life already.

I've never had it too bad that I've not had enough to store, so i guess something is being done right. I'll be damned if i know what though.

[Kirk]

Not sure if there is a specific way to stop them bolting, however first you have to consider things from an onions point of view.

People talk of "years" with onions whereas it should be seasons.
An onion will grow in the first season then flower in the second.
Plant an onion in late summer/early Autumn the onion may well consider that as the first season, winter comes as it would between seasons and the onion picks up growing in spring, but to the onion that is season 2, so flowering time.

You planted it say last Sept and it is not yet a year but it has flowered so you claim it has "bolted", I could argue that it hasn't, it has simply done what can be expected of it.

Another thing is planting big onions from the set is not good, bigger, older, more chance of them considering the Autumn as season 1, so they flower in season 2.

The other standard idea is they are stressed, then decide they may not make it to season 2 to flower, so throw up a flower early. Seeing to amount of "bolting" reported and that it seems people are putting them in earlier I suspect it is the planting time.

I suspect the first thing is abandon the idea of "year" and think in "season".

[Potstubsdustbins]

I use heated treated sets and find this a great help.

[Jay22]

I've just mistakenly unearthed a couple of my autumn planted red onions. They are not too small, are they still useable even though the leaves are still green? Am I right in saying I have to leave them for three weeks or so to 'cure'?