Kitchen Garden Forum

Evening all,
just sneaked a peak at my neighbours greenhouse and he has strted off his onion sets in compost filled module trays. Has anyone done this themselves, as a technique I have never heard of this. Is it too late to start this now or am I better off planting them out in the ground?

Hello, tailfish 99, I have not done it with onions (we grow ours from seed) but regularly use this method for shallots and garlic and it works very well, so I am sure it will do so for onions, particularly in a year like this when it's still very cold outside. And it certainly is not too late. I would go for it.

Thanks Monica, I'm going to give it a go. I have done it with garlic with good results so I'm hoping it will work.

I use it for gralic too and they are the same family.

I plant onion sets into modules now and again for later for autumn sets. It works really well. No problems planting out later with the birds pulling them out.

Beryl.

I use this method of starting my onion sets off, as well as my garlic. I find it gives them a head start

We did it last year for the first time but wont be doing it again. It could be the weather that we had last year. We decided that half our onions would be in modules and half straight in the ground to compare as the oldies on our plot regularly plant theirs in modules. It seems to work for them. So we tried it. Most of ours in modules bolted the ones which we planted straight into the ground were okay. The ones which were ok were marvellous onions but they were spoilt by three days of rain when we had pulled them to dry on the soil in the end I had to put them in the polytunnel to dry but by then it was too late. We lost a lot to rot so this year we are just putting them straight into the ground.

But if it works for you good luck, not everything works for everyone.

I hope it works, as I have seven trays of them in the frame at the moment growing strongly

I'm sure it will work, but isn't it a lot of effort when they will grow just as well planted straight into the garden?

I'm running out of space for all the things that need a bit of protection without filling it full of hardy stuff like onions.

Plumpudding, I don't think onion sets or seeds for spring sowing (as opposed to overwintering ones) are fully hardy. If they get too much of a cold shock in spring, they are sure to bolt in late summer! So I certainly wouldn't risk putting them straight into the ground at this time of the year.

We pop them straight in the ground and always have done. Now that we use heat treated sets they shouldn't bolt - they didn't last year. We planted ours at the end of last month.