growing onions from seed

treehugger80

is it too late to sow onions from seeds??

Ceres

No.

simon the man with no name

go to BandQ 80 sets for couple of quid . worked for me last year .still got some hanging in the shed . less hassell      bargain

Tomsk

I planted onion, carrot and tomato seeds on the 1st March in little cups. I think one tiny carrot shoot appeared a couple of weeks ago but immediately died. Now, (I think) one onion shoot has appeared but isn't growing fast and none of the others seem to be sprouting.

I can't see what I've done wrong (would adding blood, fish & bone to garden soil kill seeds?) and can't decide whether to start again so late. Last year I grew tomatoes for the first time and the seeds didn't appear for well over a month after planting, by which time I assumed the seeds had died so I was surprised to see them. After that, I don't know if the current seeds will all eventually appear late or if I should plant new seeds now.

I don't know if my house is on a paranormal time rift or something, but everything seems to grow slowly and very late, even when there's direct sunlight. My tulips and daffodils are only starting to show signs of blooming now (not one open flower so far) whilst the same flowers in nearby parks and other places are all dying off after having started flowering a couple of months ago.

I can see why he talks to his plants now. He's probably begging them to grow.

primrosecottage

Hi Tomsk  perhaps you should invest in a bag of compost for your seeds  . It might give them a better chance .  Tomato seeds really need a little warmth to germinate I cut large lemonade bottles in half and put each over the cup or 3"pot leave the lid off and cut hole in the bottom of the other half they make perfect pot propagator s . Don't give up never to late good luck 

Reluctant_Gardener

No, it's not too late, I sowed some  the other day in a low nutrient media in the greenhouse and they popped up quickly, though the bed soil is heating and will support germination soon, if not now (I haven't probed it yet).. Nitrogen (eg in BFB) can inhibit germination in some cases (and in others can promote it). I can never remember which species germinate best in which situation. Earlier sowings don't seem to have suffered from some feed some weeks after germination.

My first year I sowed nearly everything in old tomato bag media and anything spent I could lay my hands on with chicken manure added in paper cups. That was actually a good year even with snow in April. I suppose because the young plants had good root runs c.f. modules which usually have more width than one needs but lack depth for anything other than the youngest seedlings.

You have sown a spring sown variety, have you? I popped a line of Senshyu a specific overwintering variety in just to see if they would germinate. One or two did and they didn't come to anything, unlike all the spring-sown varieties. Ditto old seed, it just doesn't work well either. Several in a small pot seems to be better than individuals in modules, perhaps the networks of fungi that colonise root to root.

My new bulbs (daffs etc) in poor media, in shallow containers and of course in shade are slower than the older ones in the same conditions. They'll gain in vigour over the years as the bulbs take in chemical energy from the foliage going back to ground.

You'll get less choice of variety with sets, but good storers like red baron are ubiquitous. They may bolt but heat-treated sets are more resistant to bolting. I've still some in the soil which are putting up shoots so it'll be interesting to see if they swell significantly or run straight to flower.