Grow Your Own Magazine

How come I always have a lot of success with normal onion sets but the red ones always either bolt or only make small onions?

I have grown red onion sets religiously for about 10 years now and have never had a decent crop....I have tried setting them early, later and even hand picked either large or small ones but always to no avail!

To hell with it...this coming season i am growing red ham onions FROM SEED!

Snadger, I've never grown red onions myself but I have heard they are notoriously hard to grow so maybe it's nothing you've done, but the nature of the beast?

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

We have always grown red onions, and this year, for the first time have grown white and the normal brown ones.
We grow Red Baron from Marshalls, and have found them to grow well (but not large) on both clay and peat soils, but tend to need pulling early as they are prone to attack from fungi both above and below ground. Have never been able to store them beyond Xmas either (and thats on a good year !). So I understand your frustrations!!
Interestingly this year of the 3 colours , they have done much the same as the others and a little better in size than the whites (but that could be the variety).
I'm sure it's nothing you are doing- perhaps the wrong variety for your soil type or how they are 'treated' by the company you buy them from??? Frustrating isn't it!

My Red ones (Electric?) were better than the ordinary ones this year Snadger.

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

hi snadger red onions best foget em ,tried from sets and seed .waste of good growing space .what do you use em for anyway that you can,t use regular onions not bothering anymore with the buggers.long live winter japs .

Oh no, now I prefer red onions as they're much sweeter.... saute sliced red onion in a stak sandwich on crusty bread... dribble, dribble, drool. But nver grown them as I'd heard they were difficult

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Was watching Beechgrove Garden (a sort of quaint Scottish version of Gardeners World) last night and they said that their red onions had all bolted - cannot remember the variety.
My red onions were quite good this year - 5 bolted out of two rows so more than happy.

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday 17th September

Same here Rat.

I grew winter jobbies for the first time this year & more than happy with them. They were all about Grapefruit size which is plenty big enough.

I prefer red onions as well but I do grow ordinary summer onions (Kelsae & Mammoth).

__________________
ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Hope the japs are ok as I've just bought four bags for planting!

I think I too will give up on the reds

Never tried onions but am about to get some overwintering sets this weekend.

decided to pull the rest of the onions and to be honest...the red ones, yet again have done better than the red or white. I know that they tend not to store as long, but once fried and frozen, are as good as any brown onion.

Strange things onions...judging by the thread some peoples reds do very well and others reds fail miserably!

Think I'll look out for a pink onion as then I will have the best of both worlds? Lol