Onions from seed

Community Community General Gardening Sowing and Growing Onions from seed

This topic contains 19 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by  Rhys 6 years, 1 month ago.

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  • #45219

    charles
    Moderator

    Sineadann it depends on module size, and temperature!
    You could ‘pot on’ to larger modules or small pots.
    Klaasmann is great compost.
    Stringfellow has played it well and makes a good point about the moon, why not sow a few more for comparison.

    #45221

    Sineadann
    Participant

    Thank you both! Much appreciated advice.
    I enjoyed a day course with you Charles in Cork last summer at Ballymaloe. No dig makes perfect sense. Bought your No Dig organic home and garden book on the day.
    Thanks again for such prompt replies.

    #45229

    Dieter
    Participant

    I’m not sure whether January is “too early” to sow onion in general. There is a variety named “Exhibition” which the package advises to start sowing in January. What I have gathered from “the literature” is that it is important to sow when days are becoming longer again (after Christmas) to avoid the plant from forming flower/seed instead of bulb (avoid the plant mixes the seasons). The part I don’t understand is how this would apply to winter onion (such as Senshyu).

    #45233

    Stringfellow
    Participant

    Dieter, interesting question. Onions are biennial, so flowering in their second season (or when they think itโ€™s their second season!) so sowing after Christmas for a summer harvest should not result in any bolting. I think OW onions are heat treated which kills the dormant embryo in the baby bulb resulting in few actually bolting, but I could be missing some other knowledge here.

    Rhys, top grower on here, has saved some of his own seed for exhibition growing and is running some trials this year, sowing in January I think – check it out ๐Ÿ™‚

    #45237

    Rhys
    Participant

    Dieter

    I have indeed sown exhibition onion seeds this year on January 19th, but the caveat is that I am transplanting them from modules into pots rather than doing what Charles traditionally does and sow five or six seeds in modules.

    My Kelsae seedlings will be six weeks old on Friday and the fastest growing showed second true leaves emerging on day 35. This obviously gets the plants to be larger when transplanted outdoors, but without huge indoor spaces, there is a limit to the numbers you can grow. I can do 24, which will be lowered to 18 on Friday as I weed out the weakest six.

    I guess an experimental type might sow multiple seeds for clumps in modules in January, then tranfer a dozen to 7.5cm pots around day 21 and keep growing them until transplanting whenever. This would give you around fifty to sixty onions from a very early start.

    Obviously, in January and February, growth is slower than in March and April, unless you use grow lights, which I do not have.

    The real professional exhibitors sow seeds in November!!

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