Too late to plant onions in May?

[maggiethomas]

My daughter's nursery got the plot in January, it was completely overgrown with brambles, couch grass, everything! And only now are we in a position to plant onion sets.

Are we too late? We're in Yorkshire, so we're still getting frosts at night...

Thanks!
Maggie

[Incy]

You can still plant them but may want to consider using them as spring onions rather than full size ones. In fact, I picked up a bag of onion sets just the other day to use in this way.

[chris]

Spring onions would be fine mind - I sowed some in may and june last year and still got edible sized ones for salads etc! some even started to bulb up a bit!

[Kristen]

Bulb formation on Onions starts when a crtain day length is reached, so they are one crop that won't "catch up", sadly.

The Spring Onions route would be fine though ...

[Snadger]

They've got two chances!

If you've got the space going begging............go for it.

[Kristen]

Personally I don't think the decision is quite as easy as that ... you have to look after them for 4 or 5 months to get a crop, so if you are hoping to avoid buying at the shop, and if you have no alternative "likely to succeed" crop, then an experiment can be "expensive"

[Aberdeenplotter]

I'm with Snadge on this. Bung them in and you will have onions.

[scarey55]

I have just put a load in. As others have said, bung 'em in, you've got nothing to loose. If nothing else, it will remind everyone to start earlier next year

[maggiethomas]

Will onion sets really turn into spring onions? I'm not talking about sowing seeds, these are mini-onions that are already more bulb-y than Spring Onions.

Anyway, I'll bung 'em in & give them a go...

Maggie