Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: A Reyt Tayty on May 19, 2012, 09:40
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I've had several attempts at doing onion fron seed. I'm still trying, hoping to get some large enough to save for next years sets. I've tried everything. Planting seeds in the house in modules in various different rooms in the house, in the greenhouse, and outside. I've tried leaving them alone, I 've tried trasnsplanting, I've tried various composts and mixes. The best I can do is to get them to form spindly little shoots, at which point they refuse to go any further. Some have been kept warm, some have been kept cool. Nothing seems to do the trick. Everything I read on the subject says it is very simple to grow them from seed, so what am I missing out on?
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I don't know what is wrong, but whatever it is, I'm doing the same! The only onions I seem to grow well from seed are spring onions!
I do try occasionally to grow big onions from seed, but then go out and buy my sets! :lol:
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same here. I get them to needle thickness but no further. I will be planting them out as spring onions this year.
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I have grown onions from seed for the last couple of years and treat them a bit like leeks. Once germinated I pot on into individual cells (biggish ones about 1-1.5 inches square) and let grow on. Once just about root bound I plant out on the plot. They do sit there for ages before taking off and swelling up right at the last minute. I always think they are going to stay at spring onion size, but they do get there.
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Too late to try again this year
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I sow my onion seeds in early January in the cold greenhouse (the old boys do it on Christmas day ::) ).
I put 3 seeds in each module - 15 module to a tray size. If I'm lucky all 3 seeds germinate, but I'd say I get about 50-70% germination. I plant them out about now and do not split the two or three plants apart. The push each other away as the bulb up.
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I've had several attempts at doing onion fron seed. I'm still trying, hoping to get some large enough to save for next years sets.
according to this site - if you want them for sets next year you sow them in summer. So it's not too late, if that's what your'e really trying to do :unsure:
http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene4983.html
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I've certainly not got the space to grow something twice just to get one final crop, but I do agree that it can be difficult to get onions from seeds to bulk up beyond "chive" stage for planting out.
I'm using the same variety as last year (Sweet Spanish White) which could be a mistake, as they are still looking pretty much the same now as they did 2 weeks ago when planted out, although given the weather that's hardly surprising.
(I did finally get a decent crop, but I harvested them in October and they still hadn't died back!) ::)
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given that onion sets are cheap enough from Wilko, I wouldn't have thought it worth the aggro myself either.
But if that's what ART wants to do ......................... ;)
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I'm happy with my shallot sets actually and my spring onions, which are doing really well now! lol
Onions like potatoes are so cheap to buy around here, so I concentrate on the more important things like my tomatoes, chillies and runner beans etc!! :)
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Last year I grew onions from seed for the first time and found I got much better onions than I ever have from sets, so I did it again this year. I sowed 2 per module in 60 or 40 module trays back in February, in an unheated spare bedroom, 4 different varieties, in multi purpose compost. Most of them came up. Some of the 60 cell ones I pricked out into bigger modules but some I didn't. Some I left as 2 per module and planted them out that way. I planted them all out over the last two weekends.
Even now, 3 months after sowing, they're only the size of spring onions, but they're healthy and strong. They are very slow growing seedlings, slower than anything else I've ever grown. Last year they were the same, but a while after being planted out they suddenly took off and started growing. I ended up with the biggest and best onions I've ever grown.
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Even now, 3 months after sowing, they're only the size of spring onions, but they're healthy and strong.
I'd be delighted with that. Mine never seem to get past the wispy blade of grass stage.
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best advice i can give is to start growing around Oct in a tray
add thick layer of compost, water compost in tray then add onion seeds (arrange or scatter) and add a thin layer of compost on top. they will eventually pop through and water when compost is dry. by about April plant them outside. the long growing time will ensure they will be big enough to be hardy through the cold spring weather
i've grown some from Oct in a tray. I will say that fine compost is a must so they can germinate and come through without trouble, preferably in a tray. unfortunately, i planted them outside too early near end of Feb and the cold snap killed off most of them. the 5 that have survived are now bulbing up nicely. the foliage has thickened and the bulb is getting big. although i have re-sown new seeds in a tray in April and put them outside (i think 2 weeks ago) i'm not confident they will get that big as the 5 die-hard onions that survived.
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October is too early in my opinion. Not even the show growers start then. As you found out, when the plants are ready to go out, the weather isn't ready to receive them.
December/January for me.
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kind of agree with you DD. few issues i encountered, being that its my 1st time growing from seeds, was i grew the lot in small pots and in 1 pot some grew, in the other most didn't grow as watering the pots may have sunk the seeds further down the pots but i think my approach to sowing them in pots indoors needed much fine tuning... ::) the end result was most were weak (guessing competition for nutrients in a small pot) and poor fibrous compost. hence i advised to use finer compost and in trays.