onion sets - heat or no heat?

[allotment_chick]

Help please

Just off to settle my onion sets into growing cells.  This is a new approach for me - I usually put them straight in the soil and fight the battle the birds/worms/foxes etc that pull them out.

On the advice of a fellow allotmenteer I'm starting them off in cells this year.  Could anyone who has already had success with this method let me know if they need any heat, or should they go straight in the cold frame?

Thank you in anticipation
AC x

[tim]

Never tried - but would assume no heat. But what a bore - can't you draw the soil up slightly, as we do, and then, when rooted, scuff it away ? = Tim

[allotment_chick]

Hello Tim
I normally grow onion sets thru weed supressing fabric and it is quite a pallaver putting the uprooted sets back in.  

It was quite therapeutic today, setting all 75 of them out in the dry and warm greeny... Won't be able to get on my site for weeks, I shouldn't think what with all this rain, so at least it keeps me gardening instead of moaning!

AC  

[Hugh_Jones]

After years of continually replanting onion sets pulled or dug up by squirrels, birds, cats (you name them - they did it) I began starting the sets in cold frames about 10 years ago, and have used this method ever since.

I use washed yoghourt pots with holes in the bottoms (hot screwdriver) filled with a mixture 50/50 garden soil and peat, and if you mix this early and stand it in the frame for a few weeks you can start your sets a fortnight earlier than outdoors.  Plant out as soon as the first white roots appear through the holes in the bottoms of the pots

[tim]

Yes indeed - don't we all know it!

If the fabric is loose enough, and there's just a cross cut for each set, would not the roots have got hold by time that the shoot appeared through the slits? = Tim

PS No need to answer!

[allotment_chick]

...but Tim, I feel compelled to answer!  If they had rooted I would need to keep replanting the beggars, would I!?  

[tim]

I was working on the assumption that, if rooted, they couldn't easily be pulled out?? = Tim

[Mrs Ava]

I planted my shallot sets in cells last year (no lottie then, just veggie patch in garden).  I just used regular compost and they stayed outside, sheltered, but no special care.  I did it that way because my veggie patch was absolutely waterlogged until about April!  They grew splendidly and produced lots of bunches.  The garlic which I had already put in didn't seem to mind swimming for a couple of months.  

[cleo]

No heat is needed,either the cold frame or a cold(frost free)greenhouse will be fine. If they are started off in the greenhouse then a couple of weks in a cold frame before they are planted out would be a good idea.

Stephan.

[allotment_chick]

Thanks all - anticipating gallons of french onion soup .....

[Palustris]

Only thing I would add is to try very hard not to damage any roots when you do plant them out sfter hardening off. Alliums do not make branching roots so any damaged die and have to be replaced from the basal plate. Always grown onions and shallots in cells, never had a problem.
Hubris?

[tim]

But not sets Eric, surely?? = Tim

[shifty581]

Hi all
I have been planting my onion sets in trays I keep them in my green house no heat.  Then plant them out in April seems to work.
Tony