[ConfusedGardener]

Today I noticed one onion has a bud emerging. Is this a problem? What can I do if so?

I also noticed yesterday that many of the tips on my onions are starting to brown, and the leaves are starting to loose their dark green colour, so I gave them a bit of last years nettle tea mixed with the tea I made from sheep manure/wool, and diluted.  Will also give them some wood ash tomorrow.

Finally, a couple of onions have split their stems in to two. I presume the bulbs have divided? Could it be something I did wrong?

[JohnB47]

A few of my sensui yellow have produced seed shoots. Disappointing but not the end of the world. They'll still be eaten but won't store well, so I'll eat them first.

As for yellowing etc, has it been very dry for you recently? A feed will do no harm but if they're reasonably well watered I wouldn't worry about a bit of tip yellowing.

What varieties and you growing and what way - seed or set?

[ConfusedGardener]

I think they were Stutgarter sets, and they were planted out on the 25th March with a paring amount of FBB added to the bed. Last year I had celery in the same bed, which had been well manured, but the celery was planted out late and didn't do too well/get too big. Over winter I cut a couple of trees down that had been shading that area, so onions went in instead of celery.

I think the soil there is fairly well drained (I dug the bed at least 2 feet down and broke up the clay subsoil + put in a few 50l bags of manure), but we had plenty of rain 3-4 days ago, and I think only the surface of the soil is dry now.

I got a shot of them 5 days ago when they were looking better, but I also noticed that some of the leaves were starting to fold over (not sure if that's connected/normal?) around the time, though this was mostly the larger plants which you can't really see in that shot as they're at the back - I'll have to get a more recent shot or two in the next couple of days.

[gavinjconway]

Have they dried out a bit? It may cause stress and the leaves to droop..

In the pic they look perfectly normal so dont know why they suddenly look off..  You do get the odd few bolting due to stress of some type and often they split into 2. I usually use one of them first as green onions and leave the other... but they will both  grow big if you leave them be.

[ConfusedGardener]

I'd be very surprised if more than the top inch of soil had dried out, but perhaps it did. Are onions known to be very thirsty? Perhaps I planted them a bit close (about 10cm), and the density is so high that they drank the bed dry!?

[beesrus]

Probably nothing to do with your husbandry. When the first warm spell arrives, a few onions often throw up a flower spike, especially the over-wintering Japanese onions. The reds are the worst for it so I don't use them anymore.
My Senshyu and Radar Autumn onions have put up 9 out of 50 and 3 out of 50 flower spikes this week. Maybe the sets weren't grower treated properly or something. Disappointing, but I was about to start tucking in to the first green onions anyway.
Just make sure you plant enough for longer term maturity and storing. I have another 200 stuttgarter and ailsa craig catching up, half of which are grown from seed now rather than the sets that have more bolting problems. They won't all flower so quickly.

[ConfusedGardener]

Then I guess I'm in for more flowering onions since most of mine are still quite small (I made the mistake of buying a bag of relatively small sets).

In total there are about 130 odd in that bed, so should be enough for us if they don't completely fail!

I've attached a couple of photos from today.