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Growing best onions possible
Verdun
Posts: 23,348
in Fruit & veg
Any opinions on growing best onions next year. Is if better to grow from seed or sets? Used to sow seed Xmas time but sets save a lot of time however undecided this year. Facourite varieties? And feeding? High nitrogen early ? It would be interesting to hear how others grow their onions
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I only grow sets these days and have been consistently harvesting tennis-ball sized onions for the last few years, since I started using a heat-treated variety called 'Setton'. I start them in modules (the 24 to a seed tray size) in my unheated greenhouse as soon as I get them and plant out when they have good roots (usually they are about 6-8 inches high by then.) Clay soil here and the only feed they get is a trowel full of garden compost used when planting. I only started doing this to prevent blackbirds/squirrels pulling up the sets, but it worked so well I wouldn't do it any other way now.
I heard that Epsom Salts was a good feed for onions and leeks (decades ago from an old gardener). It may be that they contain sulphur. Would Epsom Salts help to keep neck-rot away?
It seemed like it. Around the time the onion tops were due to flop over when the bulbs were fully grown, some tops did just that, but when I tried to pull them up, the leaves were slimy and disintegrating as they emerged from the bulb. I lifted the bulbs with a small fork and left them to dry as usual. but most had, or developed, mildew-mould between the layers, eventually if not immediately. Only a few didn't get infected and endured in the dry shed. A sorry tale! if it happens again this year, I should probably not grow any for a year and see if the infection goes away.