Txchikngardners
Chillin' In The Garden
How do you start onion sets?
Onion sets - When and How???
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Rosalind
Deeply Rooted
In Texas, I don't know. In New England, there's a choice of two times: very early spring with some mulch, or late autumn with a lot of mulch. Set them in the dirt about 5-6" apart, roots down and sprouts up. I cover them with a bunch of straw or else a thick layer of leaves for insulation. Clip the flowers off unless you want seeds. Then when the leaves start to wilt back a bit in mid-August, pull 'em up and lay them in the sun to cure for a week or so. Then they can be braided or however you're going to store them.
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Txchikngardners
Chillin' In The Garden
There were Vidiala (sp??) and red onion sets at the feed store this week and they haven't been there before so maybe this is a good time to plant them in Texas? I'm going to try, using your mulch method, because January and February are our coldest months, typically.
Thanks for the info, Rosalind!
row
Thanks for the info, Rosalind!
row
digitS'
Garden Master
Rosalind, are you overwintering onions grown from sets??
Txchikngardners, if you have Vidalia available for transplanting, I think they'd be onion plants rather than onion sets. Plants have been grown from seeds a short time and then pulled. Sets were plants grown from seed that have already gone thru a season of growth and formed a small bulb. So it is plants and bulbs (or sets) and both can be transplanted to your garden and grown about the same way.
Sets are in storage a long time so they need to be good storage varieties and should turn out that way at the end of your season, as well. Sweet onions like those grown in Vidalia Georgia don't make good storage onions because they have so much sugar in 'em. In storage, they begin to either rot or grow again fairly quickly. It is best for the suppliers to sow the seed then pull and sell small plants to you for transplanting into your garden.
Now, having said all that - Pinetree Seed Company has something this year called the "Super Sweet" variety. They claim that it is, indeed, a super sweet onion but with "good storage quality." They sell it as sets.
I've never seen a sweet onion set!
Steve
Txchikngardners, if you have Vidalia available for transplanting, I think they'd be onion plants rather than onion sets. Plants have been grown from seeds a short time and then pulled. Sets were plants grown from seed that have already gone thru a season of growth and formed a small bulb. So it is plants and bulbs (or sets) and both can be transplanted to your garden and grown about the same way.
Sets are in storage a long time so they need to be good storage varieties and should turn out that way at the end of your season, as well. Sweet onions like those grown in Vidalia Georgia don't make good storage onions because they have so much sugar in 'em. In storage, they begin to either rot or grow again fairly quickly. It is best for the suppliers to sow the seed then pull and sell small plants to you for transplanting into your garden.
Now, having said all that - Pinetree Seed Company has something this year called the "Super Sweet" variety. They claim that it is, indeed, a super sweet onion but with "good storage quality." They sell it as sets.
I've never seen a sweet onion set!
Steve
Rosalind
Deeply Rooted
Yep. I didn't know they could be grown that way, I used to just plant them in spring, pull in August, and got a bunch of medium-sized onions. Then one of my biology professors whose husband ran a nursery business said she and her brother always planted in the fall and overwintered them to get bigger onions. My in-laws who live in the UK confirmed this and told me to mulch the heck out of them or put row covers in this climate. It works pretty well, and it's the only way I can get decent-sized onions in New England.
In Texas, I'm not sure if it would work quite so well. I don't know what Txchikngardners thinks of as cold, though; where my in-laws live, it's around 30-40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, more rainy than snowy.
I've seen Vidalia sets, although I never tried them. I always get the more cold-hardy types but a sweet onion might work well in Texas.
digitS'
Garden Master
What! Am I going to learn something new about onion sets?!!?
I've grown Granex (Vidalia) sweet onions from seed even tho' they aren't supposed to be suitable here. And, they really aren't but a little really-sweet sweet onion is good, too! (need the long-day types)
Mostly, Walla Walla sweets have been my choice and that makes sense because I only live about 150 miles from Walla Walla, WA . . .
In WA Walla Wa lla (wha?), they plant the the seed in August and harvest in July. That worked for me about 1 time out of 3 but usually - most of the plants would just bolt to seed in the Spring. Winter weather is just too cold and stressful here for the plants. And, mulching probably won't help because they are only the size of dog hairs by the time Winter comes on. :/
I still plant sweet onion seed in the early Spring so as to have nice Summer scallions. Honestly, I'm not real happy with scallions from onion sets even tho' they are easy-peasy to grow. There's a box down in the basement of the mature bulbs and I appreciate the storage qualities of those set varieties available to me.
Sweet onions are wonderful but I've just taken to buying the plants. They will get a real nice size but need to go in hamburgers and salads quickly because, well, even the red Mars (which lasts longer) has been gone for about 2 or 3 weeks now.
Anyway, Vidalia isn't likely to work any better as a set here than as a seed but if sweet onions are becoming available as sets - - I wanna know about it!!
Steve
patandchickens
Deeply Rooted
This isn't really about onion sets as such, but I was surprised and pleased to hear about this a few years ago so I thought I'd pass it on...
...if you aren't concerned about possible disease transmission, the easiest way to grow scallions (green onions) at home is to buy a good looking bunch from the store, chop off and eat the tops leaving a little greenish bit attached to the white bottoms, then plant the white bottoms as if they were an onion set. They need a little coddling til they grow their roots back, but once they get going again, you can go out and cut parts of the tops for cooking use anytime you want. I've had really good luck with this. Buy once, eat for a long time
Pat, who tried onion sets a couple of times but probably neglected them excessively b/c I swear they were smaller when they came out than when they went in
...if you aren't concerned about possible disease transmission, the easiest way to grow scallions (green onions) at home is to buy a good looking bunch from the store, chop off and eat the tops leaving a little greenish bit attached to the white bottoms, then plant the white bottoms as if they were an onion set. They need a little coddling til they grow their roots back, but once they get going again, you can go out and cut parts of the tops for cooking use anytime you want. I've had really good luck with this. Buy once, eat for a long time
Pat, who tried onion sets a couple of times but probably neglected them excessively b/c I swear they were smaller when they came out than when they went in
Rosalind
Deeply Rooted
Park Seed has Walla Walla sets but only Vidalia plants. I'm sure I saw the actual sets (the little dry pearl-size ones) somewhere, but I think it was a local garden center and now I can't find anything online. Will look again this year--I am not really into sweet onions, I prefer the storage kind, so I didn't look that closely.
Yeah, I know, how can I not like sweet onions? I just don't, I hate raw onions.
Yeah, I know, how can I not like sweet onions? I just don't, I hate raw onions.
digitS'
Garden Master
The 2008 Park catalog hasn't come yet.
You know Rosalind, you can cook a sweet onion.
Pat, your approach is tooooo easy!
What a proper onion grower is supposed to do is put the onion seed into the best soil available - preferably in the greenhouse. Any leftover seed may as well be thrown away because germination rates will plummet by the next year. Some time after the plants have emerged, tease them out of the soil using an embroidery needle. Carry a couple million seedlings into the garden in your thimble and begin putting them where they are to grow. This should take only 14 or 16 hours - - be sure and bring your reading glasses. When the thimble full of seedlings has been emptied, get some rest. You are goin' to need it so as to tease the weeds out of your onion bed over the course of the next few months. Any slip of the fingers will result in the uprooting an onion - - be sure and bring your reading glasses.
After successfully harvesting your crop - you are now ready for an easier task :weight carving the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin.
Steve
You know Rosalind, you can cook a sweet onion.
Pat, your approach is tooooo easy!
What a proper onion grower is supposed to do is put the onion seed into the best soil available - preferably in the greenhouse. Any leftover seed may as well be thrown away because germination rates will plummet by the next year. Some time after the plants have emerged, tease them out of the soil using an embroidery needle. Carry a couple million seedlings into the garden in your thimble and begin putting them where they are to grow. This should take only 14 or 16 hours - - be sure and bring your reading glasses. When the thimble full of seedlings has been emptied, get some rest. You are goin' to need it so as to tease the weeds out of your onion bed over the course of the next few months. Any slip of the fingers will result in the uprooting an onion - - be sure and bring your reading glasses.
After successfully harvesting your crop - you are now ready for an easier task :weight carving the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin.
Steve
- Thread starter
- #10
Txchikngardners
Chillin' In The Garden
Thanks for all of the good information about growing onions. I've had gardens for years but have never tackled these - although this year I am!
I did get the Vidalia and red onion sets from the feed store - here are a couple of pictures:
digitS - you said:
"Sets were plants grown from seed that have already gone thru a season of growth and formed a small bulb. So it is plants and bulbs (or sets) and both can be transplanted to your garden and grown about the same way."
I believe from your description earlier that these are truly sets, not just plants, because they have the small bulb attached at the bottom of the plant - right?
I did get the Vidalia and red onion sets from the feed store - here are a couple of pictures:
digitS - you said:
"Sets were plants grown from seed that have already gone thru a season of growth and formed a small bulb. So it is plants and bulbs (or sets) and both can be transplanted to your garden and grown about the same way."
I believe from your description earlier that these are truly sets, not just plants, because they have the small bulb attached at the bottom of the plant - right?
