Onions and garlic, growing finished now?

[shirl]

Good morning everyone.

Well, my garlic has grown to just marble size and the tops are almost all brown.  My onions are hardly bigger than when I planted them and although they still have a good green top, in most cases these have fallen over.

So my question is, is that it for the year or is there a chance they will grow a little more?  My Dad is having the same problem, yet my brother who's onions are from the same pack has onions the size of tennis balls!

I read that onions, garlic etc start to swell after the longest day but how can they when the tops are dying off?

Many thanks for any advice

[shirl]

[sandersj89]

If the leaves are drying and the stems are starting to bend over then that is pretty much it in terms of growth.

Not a great year for onions in my opinion. I have had mixed results too.

Jerry

[Doris_Pinks]

My onions have been rubbish too, I am going to pull them out soon and get something else into their waste of space!

[shirl]

Thank you for the replies.  Not just me then, I was beginning to wonder whether they are worth growing as this is my second rubbish year.  Its such a shame as the onions im buying in the shops are so tasteless.  I will have to try the farmers market or something.

The annoying thing is, my dad and myself have really looked after ours, whilst my brother left his to fend for themselves.  He will be pulling a lovely harvest while we will be using ours as salad onions!

[Plottie]

Ooooooh i'm so glad I spotted this thread.  Yesterday we pulled all our onions (spring planted) and  all are decidedly small...was half thinking not to bother next year, but maybe it has just been a bad year?  Interestingly my Japanese onions (planted last autumn) fared much better, the downside being that these don't store so well so may have to be used up quickly ::)

Plottie :)

[westsussexlottie]

Hate to upset - but my red baron onions have done really well - planted early April.  Only a few bolted but the other 147 have swelled well. I put down organic onion fertliser when planting the sets out, and then another load of the same in early May.  I also gave them a heavy watering about 3 weeks ago.
They are not dying back yet - so could even get more growth. I hope these tips help others with less success this year - but it could have just  been luck!

[redimp]

Our red barrons have nearly all bolted.  My Stuttgarter Giant are a mixed bag as are my other onions which for the life of me I cannot remember the name of.  My garlic is all getting white rot.

[Lady Cosmos]

I just lifted some onions today and as you can see on the picture they are not bad at all. I have another three rows still growing so that is promising......
Last autumn I dug in a lot of manure and only once I fed them with a fertilizer.
And of course I follow my rotation scheme. They are growing in full sun on a sandy soil.

[Lady of the Land]

My onions did not seem that large a few weeks ago, have since watered on approx three occassions and fed with growmore. The last couple of weeks have fed weekly with phosphogen. They seem to have increased in size by quite a large amount since the watering/feeding started. I did read somewhere that you should feed onions weekly until the end of July.

[undercarriage plan]

I've always planted my onions in the autumn, it works a treat and they tend to end up really big.  Give it a go, you'll be amazed by the difference.  Lottie

[Georgie]

My garlic was beginning to flop over and some of the leaves were beginning to brown so I pulled up two as a tester yesterday.  One was a decent size with lots of cloves, the other seems to be just one clove, a bit smaller than a golf ball.    ::) 

I'm going to leave the rest unwatered for a couple of week in the hope that as the leaves dry out the bulbs will swell, as I read on here recently.

G xx

[jennym]

It may not be too late to water them to increase the size. The lack of size is almost certainly due to insufficient water. water is drawn up through the roots. Experiment. pull one or two now and keep them for reference. Water the rest - at least one full watering can per square metre every day for a fortnight, then pull some and compare.

[john_miller]

Research by many people, including comparison trials of over 30 years duration at the college I attended, have concluded that small onions can also be due to a lack of potassium. Without establishing the nutrient content of the soil simply applying large quantities of water may exacerbate the problem, not solve it.

[chrispea27]

Onions are usually one of the most reliable of croppers. I think the very dry winter /spring may be to blame. My autumn sown onions are large but most of my spring sown ones have bolted and are small. Never mind plant some in Autumn! ;D

[shirl]

Thankyou everyone.  I shall give them a feed this morning, well i've nothing to lose!  I did plant them quite late, but I am making plans to plant them in autumn instead for next year.

If the last chance feed and watering is successful, I shall report back, so fingers crossed!  :)

LadyCosmos I am so jealous, well done!

[shedifice]

It seems that half me onions have swelled and grown the other half have just rotted.

Whats that all about?

L.