Kitchen Garden Forum

i found some packs of onion sets in a discount shop today centurion, stuttgarter, setton and sturon 99p each. What my question was they are really big/ fat, for instance the 200g pack i got from t&m contains 60 sets and these have approx 40 in a 300g pack. Is there any advantage to bigger bulbs, someone at my allotmnent poo pooed them and said the small shrivelled up ones were the best!

i planted some small ones in autiumn, usually they do well but although they were in raised beds the weather was too much and quite a lot rotted in the soil, yet some garlic from brittany that our local supermarket veg dept had looked superb, so I planted some garlic cloves and it has come through the winter with flying colours. now growing strongly. My guess it depends not just on variety but soil and weather conditions, they might do well.give them a try.

Hello Mandy
I think that your fellow allotmenteer is probably right. Onions are biennials - growing one year and then flowering in the next. Onion sets are simply small bulbs that are still at the immature stage so that hopefully when they are grown on in their second year they will not flower though inevitably a few do. I think that the larger sets may not be that 'immature' and are much more likely to run to flowering. Onions that start to flower can still be used but will not store.
Some sets are heat treated to stop this tendency but it's not often clear on the packet whether this has been done.
I'd say you'll be better off by sticking with small sets.

John

Dear Mandylew,
the reason that larger onion sets are not the best is that they are more likely to bolt when planted at the same early time as the smaller ones. Therefore for what it is worth my advice is this; watch for when the old boy who pooh poohed them is planting his small sets and plant yours around two weeks later. This should discourage the tendancy to bolt in these larger sets. This also holds true for red onion sets for the same reason. With the cold weather we have been experiencing I might even leave planting them for three or even four weeks.
Regards Sally Wright.

We bought heat treated onion sets last year.

The heat treatment is supposed to kill the flower bud and because of the treatment period they are not available as early as the other sets.

The treatment must work as we had no flower stems at all so we are growing heat treated sets again even though they are a bit more expensive.

thanks I have only just got my allotment back following major earthworks over the winter and it is in a sorry state, i dont think i will be planting anything for a month or more anyway. In the process of laying a pipe 4m below they have mixed the 20 inches or so of topsoil with the 3m of underlying clay and its just a mudbath. I have a new fence new shed and concrete path, but it is little consolation. I always get heat treated red onions as I do think it makes a differece i didnt understand what the treatment was though.

Dear Mandylew, sorry to here you have ended up with a mud bath.
Is there no way you can complain and see if they will re-topsoil your plot.

he is going to add a few dumpbags in one corner where the level has been significantly lowered due to compaction, that is where there is just a big puddle at the moment. I'm sure it will be better when it dries out a bit, i'm going to fill some raised beds and plant into those this year. The trauma was inevitable, but the pipe laying was essential the whole village floods regularly. Last year a sewer manhole that transects the allotments overflowed and plots on the bottom were steeped in goodness knows what not mine thankfully, I dont think I could have ever eaten anything off it again. at the moment all I can do is sit in my lovely new shed and brew tea, I'm also allotments rep (newly appointed) so i'm getting lots of visitors with their various complaints.

We had this sort of problem when new water pipes were laid. They just filled the trenches with pure clay - we could have made pots from it - just sticky grey stuff. We have just about got some sort of growing medium back now - although at a cost as we used the contaminated manure to help the process!!!