Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: mdjlucan on October 13, 2020, 08:06

Title: Overwintering onions
Post by: mdjlucan on October 13, 2020, 08:06
Looking for a good onion sets that the onions are big When developed
Title: Re: Overwintering onions
Post by: snowdrops on October 13, 2020, 08:19
I don’t know of a variety of winter onions that give you the really big onions, they are usually spring planted ones (well Christmas actually & not from sets) Autumn planted sets are really just planted to be ready a month or two earlier than maincrop onions and can stand the winter before springing into growth as soon as the weather allows.
The large onions like Kelsae etc are never sold as sets.
Title: Re: Overwintering onions
Post by: CHRISDONOHUE on October 16, 2020, 01:51
Autumn sown sets used to be exclusively Japanese varieties but the range available has widened recently.   They crop early but are reputed not to keep well and need to be eaten into to derive maximum benefit.   Large onions are usually sown from seed under glass in December and planted out early in the spring.   I have searched the Internet largely in vain to find advice to sow seed in Autumn, but have now sown and planted out in late September small plants which I am covering with cloches as they may be vulnerable to the cold winter conditions.   It seems logical to sow at a time when the plant produces seed and enables a long growing season rather than growing sets, harvesting them and replanting them in the spring, but this is clearly an experiment whose results are currently unknown.