onions

[little pud]

has anyone ever grew onions (not salad) from seed? is it successful this way. am looking at red barron.

[little pud]

[saddad]

Quite popular on here... I've grown some Beds. Champion from seed this year, a first for me...  :)

[manicscousers]

we regularly grow long red florence from seed, had a few nibbled by slugs but not had one go to seed  ;D

[BarriedaleNick]

This year I tried lots of combinations!
Over wintered from seed (red and white) and sets.
Sets also put in spring and Kelsea from seed in March.
Plus shallots overwintered and in spring.

The Kelsea from seed were excellent although there has been a bit of white rot around so I had to take mine yesterday.  It is a bit more of a faff than sets as you cant just bung them in and forget them.  Have to get the Kelsea going indoors and then plant out...but worth it.

[Barnowl]

I'm new to growing onion from seed but have found it's not too difficult and works pretty well.

[little pud]

thanx for all the input, may have a go.  ;D

[chriscross1966]

Apart from the tree onions I grow all my onions form seed. I find that the advantages are they are pretty much immune from bolting (a real problem with red onions grown from sets, you get a much bigger choice of varieties and there's some oddball benefits too.... if you grow the big varieties (things like Kelsae or Mammoth or Russian Giant) then if gives you something garden-related to be doing int he back-end of December and into early January when there's not much else.....

I use the same basic technique with variations for all all my onions. I start them all in modules. Biggies go in one per module in 60-tray or 40-tray units in December/January, general maincrop (I use Aisla Craig, and Long Red FLorence) will be four or five seeds in a 40-tray after the biggies and before the tomatos/chillis etc and then picklers and early springs will go in 10 seeds to a 24-tray once the toms etc are out of the propagators. Start with some gentle heat under glass, but once they've germinated they don't want to be covered. Use Cheshunt compound when sowing and again once after they've germinated to keep the damping off at bay.. Pot the small modules into bigger modules once the roots have hit the bottom, harden off the biggies and mains in March to plant out mid-end of March (look for a niceish week ahead in the weather forecast). Plant out with some bonemeal under them and top-dress with somethign with nitrogen (blood, BFB, nitram etc) erarly-mid April (and the biggies again in early May and early June). Picklers go in with some BFB in early May straight from their modules .

The mains grown in this way will be in small clumps and although that gives a slightly smaller onion it does increase overall yield. Long red florence is particularly well suited to the technique as it will form somethign that look slike a giant red shallot.... Spacing is a bit arbitrary.... I put the big ones in a foot or so a part, maybe a bit more, miains about 8-10 inches between clumps and picklers about 2" between clumps.

It looks like the weather this year has knocked out my cahnce of some real monsters..... at the end of June I was hoping for 3-4 lbs for some of my Kelsaes but I think they're going to cap out at 2 1/4 - 2 1/2

chrisc