They were pretty easy and would recommend onion sets to new gardners or in my case old gardners. Mine are planted around the edge of the raised beds in hopes the bugs will leave the peppers, tomatoes and egg plants alone. I went a little wild and planted too much, will end up using the dehydrator for some, to use during the winter months. FYI dried WWsweets tast just like potatoe chips when dried, maybe even better.

Tom, I'm sorry you didn't get much of a response here and suspect it is because none of us attempt to overwinter onions here. Most of us here in Oklahoma have wildly erratic winter temperatures that may go from the teens to the 70s in one day or vice versa, or up into the 80s or 90s occasionally in Jan-March. Those fluctuating temperatures can make it hard to succeed here with overwintering onions as the erratic weather fluctuations can cause the overwintering onions to bolt once the onion is past the 4-leaf or 5-leaf stage. I'm thinking your weather temperatures must be more stable than ours? I have planted onion transplants into the garden as early as the first week in January and so has at least one other member of this forum who is in the county east of mine, and we can get away with it in a 'hot' winter with stable temperatures, but the last few years we've had such erratic winter weather that I haven't even tried to plant any that early the last 6 or 7 years. Even planting in January is pushing it, but I have done it when I could find small enough transplants in North Texas in late December or early January. Jay (in SW KS) and Jan (in the OK Panhandle) probably have climate conditions more similar to yours than many of the rest of us do. I think of you west Texans every day (I was born in Ft Worth and lived there for the first 39 years of my life) and pray for rain for y'all. The wildfires have been so unspeakably horrendous there the past few months. It seems like every time it rains here in Oklahoma lately, we either get tornadoes or hail so it is risky for us to pray for rain for ourselves, so I pray for rain for y'all instead. Of course, I hope you get the rain without the pesky tornadoes or hail! Happy gardening, and come back and visit with us often, Dawn

Funny that there's been so much interest in the "Candy" variety. Yep, I've grown it too but only allowed most to get to scallion size. Actually, it didn't get much bigger - same problem as with the Walla Walla for me - direct-seeding in the Spring gives me green onions and that's about it. Candy was good and the sweetness lived up to its name. Maybe I'll try starting it in the greenhouse next year and see if it can give Walla Walla a run for the money! Green shoulders are the only thing I can think of with regards to mulching. That and the shallow roots of onions require good soil moisture. I don't know if mulching helps control green shoulders but imagine so. For the most part, I don't mulch the onions. Pulling weeds is my life . . . okay, I hate it but trying to get mulch around tiny onion seedlings is really, really tuff. I've only grown leeks for a few years. The first was a bumper crop of big beauties. They were Lancelot. I grew Lancelot and another the next year and both did fine but Lance was bigger. Last year, I forgot to order seed and picked up "American Flag" at the garden center. Somebody should sue companies that take advantage of our patriotic tendencies!! The leeks in '07 were miserable things. This year it was back to Lancelot. They look thin right now but there's a consistent "thinness" to 'em which is somehow encouraging. They are in fairly fertile soil and I've given them a shot of fish emulsion twice. This weekend, they'll get another shot . . . I'm reasonably confident but, as with all things, lose track of growth relative to the calendar. I was chewing my nails a few weeks ago out of concern that the sweet onions would just bulb-up without making decent growth. I think leeks just keep growing and growing and growing thru the season. About these onion things - - they are just leaves. The roots are, well, the roots. Onion bulbs are leaves. Think lush growth . . . digitS' Being popular is important. Otherwise people might not like you. - Mimi Pond

Bob - no, don't pull the soil up around them. It won't result in bigger bulbs and may actually hinder the bulbs if the soil is packed too tight. It is normal for half to 2/3 of an onion bulb to be above the soil line. For leeks 'hilling' or blanching around the shaft results in more of the useful edible white part.