[sarah-king]

5 of my onions have bolted they haven't even started bulbing up yet :-( should I just pull them up?

[stephenandbeverley]

Hi Sarah,

lots of mine have bolted this year, I think I haven't been watering enough.

I read that the heads should be cut off and the onions should be lifted a little earlier. These onions should be used first as apparently they won't store well. I grew about 70 onions last year and 1 bolted, I have about 300 in the ground now and about 50 have bolted.

It's very annoying!

If someone else comes along that is more knowledgeable I would take their advice as this is what i have read, not what i have experienced.

Good luck

[doubledug]

yes remove the seed head and use these onions first as they will not store. You can buy heat treated sets which are supposed to be more resistant to bolting.

[mumofstig]

'supposed' being important here  ............they still do but perhaps not as many

[bigben]

I have about 300 growing of which 240 are sturon - only one bolted. The rest are Red Baron - almost all have bolted. They have all had the same amount of sun/ water etc. I have chopped the heads off and am just glad the sturon are behaving themselves.

Dont pull them up but do remove the seed heads. I dont know how many you are growing. If like me you have quite a few then try to make sure you use them first as they will not store as well as the others. If you dont have so many then it becomes less important as you might well use all of your onions before the bolted ones start to go off.

[harry]

Some of my sprouts bolted and i was told to cut the seed heads off and leave them but they keep growing back

[sarah-king]

ive pulled off the heads... jusy hope they start bulbing up soon... its been a funny year!

[birmancats]

Hi Harry.  Once your sprouts have bolted they've had it I'm afriad.  They've moved on to another stage in their life.  Sorry

[Remy]

My grlic have started to bolt as well but haven't developed much.

[purplebean]

today I ripped up all of my onions and put them in the compost, they were still set sized and the foliage had been laying flat for about 4 weeks. My own fault I was late so stuck them in a tray and then left them too long so had to break roots to plant, they never recovered poor things. I knew hope was lost when I planted them but always the optimist I did anyway. Now replaced with other things, can't let a poor crop take up space.

[harry]

Hi Harry.  Once your sprouts have bolted they've had it I'm afriad.  They've moved on to another stage in their life.  Sorry

I'd better pull them up and plant something else

[Give it a go]

A few of my onions have bolted, however they are a fare size. Do I leave them in until the leaves turn yellow or dig them up now and use?

[DD.]

Might as well use them if they are a decentt size, as they won't store.

[Trikidiki]

My grlic have started to bolt as well but haven't developed much.

Don't panic, when garlic 'bolts' it does not ruin the bulb as it does with onions. The flowering part of garlic is caled a scape. You can nip them off and use them for mild garlic flavour in cooking or toss them in a stir fry.

The bulb will continue to develop, the only effect will be slightly smaller due to energy that went into producing the scape.

I have 6 varieties of garlic and two of them have produced scapes. Chesnok, which is a hard necked variety and what I was told was Solent, a soft neck variety are those to have 'bolted'. I have my suspicions that what I was told was Solent is in fact a hard neck variety,

None of the other soft necks have 'bolted'.