[hubballi]

And yet I have books "growing veg in pots" etc which tells you about growing everything in small containers if you haven't got the space. I still have a few of my spring onions left but they never got any bigger months on. I even fed with chicken manure.

I have just sowed some winter hardy white lisbon which I will keep in the greenhouse through Autumn/Winter.

[compostqueen]

They are winter hardy so they will grow outdoors! They don't need coddling   

[hubballi]

What about slugs    ?

[shokkyy]

I can honestly say I've never had a single spring onion or any other kind of onion nibbled by a slug. And they're one of the few things I never bother putting slug pellets near either.

[hubballi]

Slugs ate all the tops off many of my maincrop onions.

[allotmentann]

I don't believe it is slugs that eat the tops off onions. I had a real slug problem at the allotment, the only things doing well at the time were the onions and leeks. I went in one morning and all the tops had gone from both. But the damage is very different from slug damage, when you look closely the plants look like they have been sliced, slugs nibble and strip - they can make so many holes there is nothing left, but what you do see, where they have taken a whole leaf or plant, are little stringy fibres or jagged edges. Whatever takes the onion and leek tops slices clean through. The good thing is that all the plants that have had this done to them have recovered fine (the same thing later happened to my Hamburg Parsley and that grew back fine as well). I suspect rabbits on the plot, and you would be surprised at what can get into our gardens. If you have healthy plants they will survive the tops being eaten unless it happens every day.

[Willow_Warren]

I have grown come spring onions in a large container this year!  I have had to frquenctly throw large snails out of the container, they do seem to have munched on the green leaf of the onions... The onions seem to have survived the trauma though so perhaps not that tasty for them and they didn't eat too much!

I took a photo yesterday I will try to remember to upload tonight...

H

[hubballi]

I can assure you that snails and slugs do indeed eat my onions (spring and maincrop) as I have witnessed it myself upon finding them. Also, the slime is a give-away.

[Aunt Sally]

You are quite right, Hubballi.

I have had the bottoms eaten off of some of my full sized onions this year. 

[Madame Cholet]

yes mine too i pulled mine as lots of the tops were starting to show damage odd ones had nibbles on the sides too slime trails an even a lrg black slug looking like he was laying on a leaf hammock a sleep

[allotmentann]

I guess everything else on my plot must be tastier than the onions and leeks then! Everything else was completely stripped! Amazing how things recover though

[Willow_Warren]

Here are my spring onions, grown in multi purpose compost with nothing added, seems I've forgotten to use most of them though, if you look closely you can see where the snails have nibbled the green bits, was worse a few weeks back though
 
AdobePhotoshopExpress_20120829070710 by Willow_Warren, on Flickr

Hannah

[allotmentann]

Yes, but they are holes and nibbles as I said. When the tops went from my stuff they went clean off at the same height, quite literally as if something had taken a pair of scissors to them, in fact my first thought on seeing the leeks was, that I didn't remember trimming the tops before planting them! Which is what I was saying in the first place, I don't think slugs and snails eat the tops off (they might eat some, if they get that far up the plant, but if all the tops go it is probably something else, as slugs and snails will nibble all over a plant). I wished I had a photo to show as the damage was really strange.

[Robster]

This was my first successful year with spring onions.  I think it was all down to having a bit of patience.  I sowed directly into a big planter with garden compost overlaid with commercial stuff.  They started off slowly and I thought they would never get there.  We ate the thinning and they just kept on going.  Once washed and trimmed they lasted a long time in the fridge in a plastic bag too.  I made one mistake- I think I should have sowed a lot more than I did say a month apart,  Still I have lots more just starting to pull now.

Sowed the Winter white lisbon too and thats germinated well.

At £1 for a few in the shops this is a great crop for transforming salads and all sorts of uses.  Yep its a good thing to grow

[hubballi]

Here are my spring onions, grown in multi purpose compost with nothing added, seems I've forgotten to use most of them though, if you look closely you can see where the snails have nibbled the green bits, was worse a few weeks back though
 
AdobePhotoshopExpress_20120829070710 by Willow_Warren, on Flickr

Hannah

You see, I am told that my failure has been growing them in pots of multi-purpose and yet look at the above. Multi-purpose compost !