Tips for growing onions from seed?

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MrBig46
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#81

Post: # 45782Unread post MrBig46
Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:31 am

My winter onions look great today. Next winter I will grow the whole bed of these three varieties. Other gardeners have not even planted a planting and sowing (the coldest April since 1941) and I will be harvesting fresh onions in a moment.
Vladimír
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ponyexpress
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#82

Post: # 45801Unread post ponyexpress
Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:19 pm

MrBig46 wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:31 am My winter onions look great today. Next winter I will grow the whole bed of these three varieties. [/url]
They do look great. I like the idea of being able to plant onions in the fall and then harvesting next summer.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#83

Post: # 46170Unread post Paquebot
Tue May 04, 2021 6:41 pm

Update on onions here is interesting. By mid-May, the local Jung's garden center usually has a 2 for 1 special on onion plants. Won't happen this year. Out of at least 10 varieties available, only 3 crates still had a few bundles. Have never seen that before in the nearly 30 years that the store has been there.

At home the Redwing were the quickest to recover while Patterson sulked for awhile. Now some Patterson are almost a foot tall. With 6 weeks yet before bulbing there is a promise of some huge bulbs again this year.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#84

Post: # 47405Unread post Paquebot
Mon May 24, 2021 11:07 pm

Four days ago, planted onions which most would think might be best just for scallions. They were started very thick in March. Varieties were Ailsa Craig and Blush. All only had one leaf and maximum size was 6". They were never trimmed and had to be separated in water to untangle the roots. My friend's methods go against most rules but she gets super results. Theory is that they just need a month of growth before the first day of summer triggers bulbing. Unlike the Dixondale trimmed plants which took several weeks to show growth, these plants all standing tall after 4 days.

Martin

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#85

Post: # 47410Unread post mama_lor
Tue May 25, 2021 2:38 am

I planted my onion one week ago. They were about 5mm thick, which is not bad, I think any thicker than that and they are going to restart slower.

I have to put them so very late because of the allium leaf miner which is completely destroying all allium crops over here, I even lost a few garlics which should not be affected (they say), the ones that don't show the symptoms (but are still at least bit affected) don't really have the same growth they could have had. The miner has two cycles, and it should stop flying in the middle of may. I think I will plant garlic earlier next year, so that it's older when the attack happens, that seems to make the difference (but I am afraid not to catch the autumn cycle).

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MrBig46
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#86

Post: # 48058Unread post MrBig46
Fri Jun 04, 2021 11:41 am

1. I am extremely satisfied with the harvest of winter onions. They survived frosts between ten and twelve ° C under nonwovens. The best are the common Czech varieties Hiberna and Augusta, seeds for a few crowns. I bought Kelsae seeds over the internet, it was four times more expensive, and if I didn't want to buy them, I would have to propagate the seeds. The picture next to it is what's left of the cauliflower. The flowers on the cauliflowers are starting to bloom so I wrapped them in a curtain and I will pollinate by hand.
2. In the second picture, seedlings of large onion are planted in a flower bed. They're not very big yet, but I hope it gets better.
Vladimír

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#87

Post: # 48262Unread post GoDawgs
Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:13 am

ponyexpress wrote: Mon Apr 19, 2021 2:07 pm Hi all, I've been away for a bit. Got Covid from my daughter so I had to quarantine myself for 2 weeks plus we had crummy weather. I finally planted some of my onions in the past week. The ones I grew from seed had a really good root system. I was able to pull the entire block out gently. The cells are 5" long. The trays I used are these: https://www.greenhousemegastore.com/dee ... plug-trays
[mention]ponyexpress[/mention], does that 5" plug tray fit into a standard flat tray to catch drainage? This 5" one looks like a great alternative to how I've been growing onions and scallions from seed. Going to be trying leeks for the first time this fall and these look like they'd be handy.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#88

Post: # 48437Unread post Paquebot
Fri Jun 11, 2021 8:29 pm

As predicted earlier, the large Patterson plants have bolted on at least 25% of the total and still may be more. Their bulbs will not be stored very long. Om the other hand, not a single Redwing has bolted.

Martin

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#89

Post: # 48441Unread post bower
Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:48 am

Here are the 'french shallot' 2 days ago. Not quite as thick as the tulip stem. Transplanted from cell packs with no trimming, but they took a long time to start to stand upright, probably due to the major change from greenhouse living. I thought they may lose a leaf after all but this morning they're looking their best ever, so perhaps not. Bit of snow left them perky. Get on with it! :)
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#90

Post: # 48504Unread post ddsack
Sun Jun 13, 2021 8:07 am

@Bower - snow in mid June? I wish I could send you some of our extra heat!

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#91

Post: # 48527Unread post bower
Sun Jun 13, 2021 3:18 pm

[mention]ddsack[/mention] we are back to normal thank goodness. For such a rare event, the good thing is it'll probably be a long time before we see that again!
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#92

Post: # 48763Unread post Paquebot
Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:14 pm

I can't say enough good things about Patterson. Not this year's crop but last year. We are now in mid-June and there are still a dozen bulbs from last year which have not sprouted. That's 10 months since harvest and still firm. They are outlasting shallots! Not overly happy with the ones growing now. Still nipping off flower stalks. Planning to chew out Dixondale for their first major error with me in almost 40 years.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#93

Post: # 48893Unread post MrBig46
Sat Jun 19, 2021 3:10 pm

My experiment with growing onions over the winter is definitely coming to an end. Today I plucked three onions to consider. Each of them weighed about 20 dkg. Of the forty planted seedlings, only two bulbs went into bloom.
Basic information about this project:
Sowing of three varieties of Augusta, Hiberna and Senshyu at home in 200 ml cups on August 3, 2020. On October 5, seedlings about 5 mm thick were planted on a flower bed in the holes in a black mulching cloth. During the winter, a non-woven white fabric was placed on them so that it did not lie directly on the plants, but was about 20 cm above them. The biggest frost was - 15 ° C. From mid-May, I harvested fresh onions for raw use. They were excellent in taste.
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#94

Post: # 49051Unread post Paquebot
Mon Jun 21, 2021 9:49 pm

Sent message to Dixonale concerning the extra-large Patterson plants and that many are bolting. Almost had to laugh at the generic explanation for bolting. Everything was blamed on conditions as if it were the gardener's fault. Not once was the size of the plant or set. My first reaction was to fire right back with the facts but since this is the first bobble in over 30 years, I let it lay. For certain, I will be watching them close next year.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#95

Post: # 49160Unread post ponyexpress
Thu Jun 24, 2021 5:49 am

GoDawgs wrote: Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:13 am @ponyexpress, does that 5" plug tray fit into a standard flat tray to catch drainage? This 5" one looks like a great alternative to how I've been growing onions and scallions from seed. Going to be trying leeks for the first time this fall and these look like they'd be handy.
Yes, the trays do fit within the standard 1020 trays. I’m trying to remember if I used my trays with them or not? The only drawback of the 5” trays is that they are very heavy when fully loaded.

All of my onions are bulbing now. Comparing the onions that I grew from seeds with the Dixondale plants, I think I can say that I finally equaled them. Had to start the seeds in January to give them enough time to grow.

My Copra onions from last year are still intact in storage with only a few that sprouted. I have heard good things about Patterson so I’m looking forward to testing their storage qualities.

At the community garden, my onion plants look far better than everyone else. I think this is because I planted them in late April after we had periods of cold weather. My plants were in 5” trays in the house at night but outside during the day. I think that helped them a lot. The other thing is the trays were filled with compost, not potting soil.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#96

Post: # 49267Unread post ponyexpress
Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:54 am

Here are my onions at my community garden plot taken yesterday. The two rows on the left are from Dixondale (Copra, then Blush). The next row are the onions I grew from seed (Candy & Patterson). They look pretty good, don't they? The last row on the right are Highlanders from Dixondale.
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#97

Post: # 49268Unread post ponyexpress
Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:57 am

A closeup of a Copra onion from Dixondale. I think I can count 11 leaves. Will be a big onion! I still have Copras from last year in storage that are doing well.
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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#98

Post: # 50098Unread post ponyexpress
Thu Jul 08, 2021 4:10 pm

My onions continue to look good since the last post. A couple more weeks before the tops start to fall over I think. I think the onions I started from seed will be as good as Dixondale's. The secret is to get them started early, use natural daylight as much as possible in my mini-greenhouse, use compost, and to use root trainers so they get strong, deep roots. I would bring my onion seedlings outside during the day whenever there was sun and back inside overnight. A bit of pain to schlep the trays in/out of the house twice per day.

I planted Candy & Patterson from seeds and bought Blush, Copra, and Highlander from Dixondale. I will continue to buy Blush/Copra but will drop Highlander as it does not do as well as the other two.

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#99

Post: # 50167Unread post Paquebot
Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:59 pm

Verdict out on the over-size Patterson plants. Due to the dry April and May, they rushed to maturity at less than expected size. Barely a week into July and most tops were brown and dry. In all, 42 bulbs were harvested of which only 22 will be for storage. The other 20 are smaller and have the hard neck from bolting. Bad enough that I had to plant two bundles to get less than what would be in one but then only half are what was expected. Always look to next year and maybe start from seeds.

Martin

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Re: Tips for growing onions from seed?

#100

Post: # 52695Unread post bower
Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:47 pm

I just pulled the 'french shallots' today, since they are starting to flop over and/or dry down, and we're forecast a rainy week. I'm pretty happy with these considering how late I started... okay, I lack ambition. ;) i will take little onions if that's what i get and be satisfied.
Anyway I was glad I took these up because there's some serious biting on some of them... no idea what is big enough to gnaw these underground. Whoever it is shall not have another bite this season! The rest is for me. :)
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