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This year I've decided to plant less onion sets this autumn as I want to try growing my onions from seed. Can someone just explain to me what is involved in doing this. I've heard an old tale to sow the seed(inside) at the end of December. How do I go about planting the growing onions outside as I thought onions didn't like too much root disturbance?? If its going to be an involved job then I might stick to sets.
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I've not sown onion yet - but if I were I would try using module sowing, that would minimise the root distubance if this is an issue - I am sticking with sets for now.aka
Suzie -
Hi
We will be having an onion thread on here at the end of December, so you can join in with that.
Onions don't mind their roots being disturbed on planting out - otherwise none of our onions would grow. What they don't like is being hoed too often once they are out there. This is because they have shallow roots.
If you sow into modules you can separate them once they are about 1mm thick; which is usually around March/April time if you've sown them at the end of Dec......but I just plant them out no matter what size once the last frost date has been and gone.
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Would toilet roll tubes cut down act as suitable modules??Comment
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I'd say no to be honest.....because they are in them for quite a while and the tubes go mouldy and disintegrate before it is time to plant out. I've used them to partition off bigger trays for onions though so if that's all you've got...Originally posted by adjohnson1971 View Post
Anything plastic would be better.......
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I tend to plant sets for overwintering around this time of year and then start sowing onion seed from early January. With the seed, I just sow onto a seed compost and leave nature to do the rest. When large enough (bent/crooked leaf stage), they tend to get hardened off for a couple of weeks and then planted out around mid March.
That way, I have a crop of overwintering onions I can harvest from June and then September onwards, I have the seed sown maincrop - I tend to use Ailsa Craig - brilliant and dependable and very rarely run to seed
SkotchArtificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity
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