Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: ThePragmatist on January 14, 2013, 13:03
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Hi,
Does anyone have any favourite varieties of onion? Particularly for those in the north of the country. My autumn planted red onions bolted last year so I'm going for spring sowings this time round.
Cheers!
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Cannot name any specifically, will look round.
Onions come in short day, long day and what I assume is sort of neutral day varieties. What you really need is to identify those that are most applicable to you. That is the "technical" bit.
Next is if you start from onion sets then don't plant the nice big ones.
Being bi-annual (2 year cycle) an onion will go to seed in the second year. The larger onions may just have grown enough to have decided that they are a year old, so when you plant them they consider this as the second year and off they go making seed.
Bet you never expected growing onions to be so complicatred, I know I didn't.
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Seems that for the UK we need long day varieties, these bulb up when the hours of day light are sort of 14-16 hours long - our long summer days.
The only one I have read so far that is stated as such is Ailsa Craig.
Short day varieties are for further south, which includes areas such as Spain, so probably best if you avoid the Spanish onion varieties. Wonder how many of us but Spanish onions in supermarkets then try to grow the same with poor results.
Cannot locate a list of varieties and the type, that are relevant to the UK. Several for the US but the names of the varieties are different and so cannot identify what they are called here.
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VARIETY SIZE TASTE STORAGE COLOUR
Ailsa Craig Large Mild Good White
Autumn Gold Medium Medium Good White
Hyred Medium Strong Good Red / white
Red Baron Medium Strong Excellent Red / white
Setton (AGM) Medium Medium Excellent White
Sturon (AGM) Medium Medium Good White
Stuttgarter Medium Very mild Good White
Stanfield
RHS Varieties:
‘Setton’ AGM: One of the best onions with excellent yields of dark-skinned bulbs that store well.
‘Sturon’ AGM: A popular and reliable onion with excellent flavour and medium-sized bulbs that store well over winter.
‘Hercules’ AGM: This is a large onion with dark golden skin and is quick to establish.
‘Hyred’: A late-maturing red onion with attractive crimson bulbs. Stores well over winter.
Found these on 2 sites RHS being one.
Seems these are the recommended for the UK so I assume the right type.
If you have a Poundland close I think they have Stuttgarter and Setton in at £1 a bag.
Apologies but the browser destroys the first table as it compresses spaces and tabs.
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Short day and long day, those are new to me. Cheers for the table! I think I can decipher it.
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I have had fantastic results with Turbo here in Yorkshire. Also grown Sturon and they were OK, but not as good. However need to bear in mind I planted the Sturons quite late and grew them last year, so they could be excused not doing so well given the hideous weather throughout the growing season.
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Okay, out of curiosity I looked up the dates for London vs Edinburgh.
| Hours | London | Edinburgh |
| 12 | 18th March | 18th March |
| 14 | 17th April | 13th April |
| 16 | 24th May | 10th May |
So using long day onions in Scotland means the onions bulb up later which helps with the slower start up north, but we get to 16 hours of daylight much earlier than down south. By midsummer, Edinburgh gets about an hour extra daylight than London.
You learn something new every day.
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This day-length feature was all news to me too - found THIS (http://www.raisedbedgardener.com/vegetable-tasks/onion/onion-short-long-day.htm) link which explains it in some detail, although I'll still probably be sowing and hopefully growing Ailsa Craig because a) Sweet Spanish Yellow haven't done that well here for 2 years, and b) I've already bought the AC seeds, although I will keep following this thread to see if I can be persuaded there is a better choice for this area.
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Well I found an onion grower that listed Ailsa Craig as long day onions.
http://www.dixondalefarms.com/category/long_day_onions
So I think it is a reasonable choice.
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I normally grow Ailsa Craig and Bedfordshire Champion, and both do well for me.
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Does anyone have any favourite varieties of onion? Particularly for those in the north of the country.
Bedfordshire and Ailsa Craig did well from seed here last year - the seeds were less inclined to bolt compared to the sets. Will be starting off seeds of both over the next week or so (indoors).
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This all sounds hugely over thought. just try a few of each and work out what tastes good and grows well in your soil only time will tell