Mine here in FL are doing the same thing. There is huge diversity in the "onion" world. The flowers may be sterile, in which case they won't decrease growth very much. If they do make true seed, they may prove to be good self-sowers, which can be very handy.

No telling, but probably a white shallot. They also come in red and they will bloom. Here is a link that might be useful: Shallots

Thanks, Brook. Per your advice, I will plant these in the former potato bed to keep these green onion size. Like you, I have keept extra sets in frig for fall, and had fair results, but am hoping these sweet onion plants are indeed sweet. The sweetest green onions I have ever eaten are the ones from my potato onions in the spring. Today, I got an email from Southern Exposure, and included was a Fall/Winter Veg Gard Quick reference suitable for Zone 6b/Ctrl VA. Printed it for my notebook and will forward it to you if you like, as your zone is probably similar. They list suggested planting dates for many crops. They also mention an EvergreenHardy White Green Onion,Deep Purple. Have to research that one. They say, the colder the winter, the more purple color. No mention regarding flavor. mj

Carol, On the day you were down here for the funeral, I kind of pictured you in my mind racing back home to get there before the ice storm arrived. I was relieved we had rain in the forecast because the day you were at the funeral we had multiple fires in our county. I am hoping the inch of rain we got will keep it quiet for a little while. I hope Al has a safe trip home whenever the roads are clear enough for him to drive back. I have had my onions for 10 days and haven't planted them yet. Onions can freeze (not that they necessarily will) at 20 degrees and our forecast for last night and tonight was 24 degrees as of yesterday evening. At our house we only went down to 25 degrees this morning but Burneyville went down to 23. I might plant onions tomorrow if there's no temps lower than 25 in our 7-day forecast. Since our overnight low tends to go lower than forecast fairly often, I always try to err on the side of safety when planting onions. Last year it was really warm here so I planted early. This year the nights have been much colder so I am planting late. For anybody wondering, you normally can hold fresh, Dixondale onions for 3 weeks before planting. Because they are pulled and bundled immediately before being shipped to you, they are really fresh and green and tolerate 3 weeks out of the ground before planting just fine. Pam, I use the mesh tubes that Carol calls onion socks. I just call them mesh onion tubes. Before I started using the mesh tubes I did use old stockings, tying a knot between each onion. With the mesh tubes, I use a twist tie or a zip tie (whatever I have handy) instead of tying a knot. That way I can reuse the mesh tubes. You also can get more onions in a tube if you aren't using up some of the tube to tie a knot in the tube itself. I know people, like Chandra, who put more than one onion in the tube before tying it off. I also know people who store their onions in mesh bags or in burlap potato sacks. In a dry year, all the methods seem to work equally well as long as the onions were well-cured before being stored. In a really, really wet year like 2007 (hard to describe how wet it was, but I remember we had a foot of rain in June alone....which is really close to onion harvest time in my part of the state), the mesh tubes worked the best. All the onions grown here that year were huge and had the highest water content I've ever seen in onions. It was essential that year to tie off the tube in between each and every onion because in any place where two onions were allowed to touch each other, rot set in. I cured mine twice as long as usual before moving them to storage. I ordered 7 bundles of onions this year because I wanted to try the two new short day varieties. It has been a few years since I planted 7 bundles in one year. The last time I grew that many, I froze a lot of the excess ones for cooking that I felt were likely to go bad before we could eat them all. Those frozen onions lasted us 3 years. The fresh ones, harvested in June or July, lasted us until February or March, which is really good considering how wet they were at harvest. I use a ton of onions in cooking and canning. My favorite is Candy too, but I like Texas 1015Y just about as well, and I always grow one full bundle of red onions for Habanero Gold jelly-making. Most of the puddles from the Wed-Thurs rain have begun to disappear as the moisture soaks into the ground, but my garden still is a lake. If I plant onions in the next couple of days, I'm going to be planting in the mud. Dawn