Strong onions

[princescruffster]

Mr princescruffster is a bit of a grumpty old man. Whenever we sit down together and scan through the seed catalogues he is always moaning about the descriptions of onion seeds & sets.  They often are have marketing descriptions  as being "mild", "sweetest yet", "mild enough to eat raw".   He's looking for really masucline, eye watering strength.  Any suggestions for STRONG flavoured onion varirties?   

[princescruffster]

[saddad]

Logic says go for the older varieties then I grow a lot of sets Sturon and the like.. home grown are usually stronger than bought. Make great Onion soup!
  ;D

[Tee Gee]

As a rule of thumb the bigger the onion the milder the flavour.

Which figures when you consider that the thicker layers consist mainly of water thus diluting the.............for want of a better word Taste!!

[Barnowl]

"Hercules" should be pretty strong  :)

http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=2541

Seriously, I grew them last year and they actually were reasonably strong.

[keyhole-kate]

is growing from seed as easy as sets? i've always planted sets but tend to have a few that bolt, never tried growing from seed but if it's relatively easy and successful then i may give it a go.  ???

[saddad]

I've never tried either but am seriously considering it...  :)

[manicscousers]

we always grow some from seed, long red florence is a favourite..we don't get them going to seed but they're a bit more fiddly than sets.
this year we're doing giants from seed, they're already started  :)

[simmo116]

ive just got 2 window propergators from b&q and filled em with red baron and bedfordshire champion. not sure what there like anyone tried them? i've also put in some purple sproutin brocoli.does anyone else use the peat disks/pellets?
sorry to hijack post with another question. ;D

[Robert_Brenchley]

Whatever I grow, they're always a lot stronger than the things from the market.

[tonybloke]

Unless you water prollifically, you'll usually grow stronger onions than shop-bought / imported ones.
We just had Bambi steak with Red baron onions and chips and peas for tea, yummy!! ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

You may well be right; I don't water. At the same time, they're just as strong when the sluicegates of heaven stand open as in a drought year.

[Barnowl]

Grew onions from seed for the first time last year. Sowed in a mini root trainer in 3rd week of January - brought indoors from the frost free GH after a week or so because it was staying quite cold (but apparently they normally take a while to germinate anyway.)

I've stuck a picture of the root trainer (in a cold frame at beginning of April I think) in my 2008 gallery  since my option to post photos has disappeared (I think I must owe Dan a sub :-[  )

I then planted out in the first week of May and the end results were good.  Not really much harder than sets.