Onions

johnjosephmcbride

Hi folks, I've sown onion sets again this year but a lot of them are starting to shoot up and grow seed bulbs on top. From what I can remember, this leaves  me with a very small onion which has a long shoot and a seed bulb on top. Is there any way this can be prevented so as to give a decent sized onion in the ground. I've heard that if you cut off the seed bulb that is beginning to grow, that the onion will grow better, but I'm not sure if that's the case. Can anyone confirm this, or provide me with an alternative method of halting the seed bulbs growing, so I can produce better sized onions?
Many thanks,
John.

wild edges

The seed bulb is the flower head. If you leave it on there the flowers will suck the energy out of the onion so nip it off to keep your onion edible. I find that onions don't do any more growing after they've tried to flower so I pull them up and eat them, they won't store for very long.

Onions need a good stable water level in the soil and don't like this hot, dry weather. It's been a tough year to grow onions with it being so hot just when they're putting on good growth. Getting good onions involves soil preparation in advance to make sure the soil can retain moisture and has a good fertility level. Then you need to keep on top of your watering and weeding.

johnjosephmcbride

Thanks a mil, wild edges, for your speedy reply. I'll nip them off then so and try to keep them as topped up, moisture wise, as I have been. 
Cheers,
John.

johnjosephmcbride

Hi there, wild edges, is this the same for garlic? My garlic is going the same way?
Cheers,
John.

wild edges

Hard neck or soft neck garlic? Hard neck is supposed to flower and you can eat the tops. They're like a mildly garlicy green bean. Soft neck normally don't bolt but this weather is much better for garlic than onions.

johnjosephmcbride

Not sure which type they are. 
Thanks for the info.

Skandi

johnjosephmcbride said:

Hi there, wild edges, is this the same for garlic? My garlic is going the same way?
Cheers,
John.

If it is flowering it is hard neck, cut them off if they are new (curled) they make a really good addition to stirfry or pesto. They get too tough as they get older, but still remove them as they do take energy from the bulbs. Garlic always flowers so it's nothing bad with them, (unlike onions)