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Vegetable Gardening

growing onion sets

13 years ago

I grew way too many onion seedlings and was wondering if I could plant them close and grow them as sets for next year. So how do I space them (I assume very close) and when do I harvest them? Also, is it even possible to save them because they are sweet type (granex hybrid - short day) and the bulbs don't store well so I imagine the same goes for the sets?

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Comments (8)

mrdoitall
13 years ago
If it was me. I would just plant them close 1" to 2" apart and eat them as green onions. There is know set time when you can pull a onion and just eat it. Only if you want to store them, let them go to the end.
wokney57
Original Author
13 years ago
Thanks, but I'm not interested in green onions and I know they're edible at any point. Anyone know about growing them into sets.
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I know that a 6" limit is horrible, that's why I come to the experts! I took a second look and I think I could fit an 8" pot and maybe even a 10" if I could get it to balance right. The "onion sets" were given to me so I don't know exactly what they are. I'm planning to just use the greens as they come up like green onions or chives; as long as it has that mild onion flavor I'll be happy. I am in the rainy side of oregon. The building is set at an angle, and being directionally challenged I can't seem to figure out which way is which. The windows do get a little bit of afternoon sun, but it doesn't last too long. The apartment is usually kept between 70 and 72 but I've never taken the temperature on the window sill. You're absolutely right, peppers and tomatoes would never make it in here. How deep would a pot need to be for radishes and carrots? We make a lot of stir-fry and both would be wonderful. I have thought about salad greens as well, but I'm not familiar with all of the different kinds and the requirements of each. I am somewhat baffled by the gardening options, yet stunted by my environmental limitations. If anyone has an innovative idea, I'm all ears!! On a different note, I scoured the forum and couldn't find this post, so I started a new post. I apologize for my oversight. Everyone is invited to respond on both, I will keep an eye on them (and hopefuly not lose it this time!). Thanks! Lexie
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Ashley is in the Dallas area. I know that most onions are long day but if they are bought from a reputable local dealer they should be short day since they are the only ones that will make bulbs. If bought in a grocery store more than likely they will be long day. If bought from Lowes or Home Depot there is no telling. In the future the Texas 1015 would be what she should be looking to buy. They come in bundles of 25 or 50 plants. The odds are she bought long day but can not tell until spring unless she knows the variety. Ashley is young and just getting started growing things. So far she seems to have been doing a really good job. Sometimes the best way to learn things is to just plant and then figure out your mistakes. She seems to be past the stage when people say, I think I must have over watered or under watered. That statement always scares me. I think she will get more out of asking questions here than going to a website that just gives general information that might not apply to her area.
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Travellinjess; I have tried growing onions from direct seeding in the past in your zone. The problem is to seed them when they will amount to something, the germination is so slow that the weeds beat them, and it is almost impossible to find them when they do germinate. I start mine indoors March 31st, for a transplant May 15th I harvest about 2nd to 3rd week in august for storage onions. You can get one of those 10"X20" trays with 12 inserts and can grow enough transplants to provide you with a couple of hundred pounds of storage onions! once they germinate they are very tough, and you could move them outside in days and bring them in at night. I cut the tops a few times, and it causes them to bulb out, and by transplant time they have a good root system and a 3/16" bulb on some of them. I then make a furrow come planting time, and set them out with the appropriate spacing for the variety, they take about a week to settle in and then are away to the races! I tell you if you can manage it you will never go back to onion sets! The picture shows top and bottom shows only 2/3 of that particular crop Hope this helps Chic. PS onions shown are Walla Walla and Hendrix both from Stoke seeds.
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spiced_ham
13 years ago
I googled "how to produce onion sets"

and found this among others

http://www.ehow.com/how_5698479_make-onion-sets.html
wokney57
Original Author
13 years ago
A really, really useless link, as usual with ehow. It doesn't answer the three basic questions that I asked, spacing, harvest, storage. Absolutely no help at all. I was hoping someone had some experience with actually growing them. Anyone have real-world experience they can share?
noki
13 years ago
Is it worth the time?

a) the seedling grow better bigger onions than sets. you've grow seedlings at the right time this year, why not do the same next year?

b) did you even use up the seed packet? do you have more seeds for next year? worried about wasting less than a dollars worth of seeds? or you just having a hard time killing your seedlings? culling is part of vegatble gardening.
wokney57
Original Author
13 years ago
Ok, I didn't know seedlings produced better than sets. I prefer seedlings for cost, variety, and I just enjoy starting seeds.

And as for the cost, if I could produce sets from my seedlings and save them for next year and have everything else be equal then yes, I would be happy to save less than $1. That's how I roll.
girlgroupgirl
13 years ago
Here is a much better link,
See below:

Here is a link that might be useful: Grow Your Own Onion Sets
calliope
13 years ago
The glitch is you have already planted your seeds and have seedlings. If you want to make your own onion sets, you don't start them early with the rest of your seedlings. You start them later. The reason being, onions bulb up (and that is after all what a set is, a very young onion plant bulbing up before you'd normally want to harvest it) in response to day length. You'd think you could just harvest some of your onions as they begin to bulb, but that's going to make storage time for your sets too long. You want to get your seedling in the ground as late as possible, but still early enough to grow a little and bulb up. Even if you do succeed, and you manage to keep your sets over winter, if the timing isn't spot-on what you will end up with are sets who won't produce much of anything next year but decent green onions. The sets folks buy in stores sometimes are those sorts of 'victims' and that's why so many of us will use only seedlings. It's a pain in the tush, for questionable results unless you just want to see if it can be done. Seed is too danged cheap, LOL.

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