Wayne, as you know, onions are biennial. They bloom the second year. When you plant sets, you are planting them in what they think is their second year. Then they will rush to seed if they are too large to start with. You set them back a year by breaking off that flower stalk as soon as it appears. Used to be that one considered any set larger than a dime to be too big for bulb purposes. One sorted them out and planted the small ones in one row and larger ones in another. The larger ones were used for quick scallions. What I've now seen happening is that the sets are becoming larger and larger. This coincides with availability of plants almost everywhere. Now, if one wants bulbs, one plants plants. If one wants scallions, one plants sets. The problem is that it's going to take a few generations to get used to that since onion sets traditionally have never come with instructions. Martin

I may lose my topsetting yellow dry onion. Half the topsets have dried down so much, I fear they are dead. once they were 1/8 inch diameter, but now the smaller ones may be dead. What is the best way to save onion sets? I am contemplating. 1. hang them in a superb damp root cellar that never freezes and is usually 35 to 45F. 2. Plant some in ProMix BX in an growing box where I am growing cabbage plants and it has grown fine plants many years. 3. Keep tham in the kitchen where they have been since July 4. Plant them in garden which ranges down to 10F most years butgets below -10F 1/5 of winters. ------- I planted some of the topsets in garden at Thanksgiving and I still have the original 2-inch diameter dry bulb and it looks sound, but has lost about 1/4 of its weight. Harold Eddleman

I have A strain of Egyptian Walking onion( red top set and will form a double onion bulb for later harvesting grows to 2 ft or more, large leaf) Noid Garlic..produces a snake coil, and now forming bulblits. Send me mail and Let's Trade!

Sorry about your onions Dan. Last year I lost my onions because of a watering problem and they withered away. A few weeks later it rained and the onions started growing again but why and what stage were they in? They were in the bulb development stage and would never get bigger and eventually flower if given the time so I tilled them in. It was the first time I had to buy onions in 16 years. I would say your plants bolted because of water stress or a cold snap when your plants were in the bulb development stage and no other reason, and If the stress would of happened while the plants was in the vegetative stage the bolting would never happen. The tolerance level to stress between the two cultivars is probably different and why the 1015 hasn't bolted. Starts, (the plants you received from DD are starts, but they call them plant bunches.) are onions which are still in their vegetative stage and will grow through a cold snap or a watering issue but will never bolt if the stress is removed before the photoperiod triggered the bulbing stage, (only smaller onions) . If the onion bulb was bigger than the neck, like twice the neck size, and bulb initiation started it could trigger bolting but DD knows how to grow sets right, so I don't believe the starts was the problem. (They didn't have bigger bulbs than the neck, right?) Sets (small dry bulbs) are technically 2 year onions and I rarely plant them. Bolting and low storage is a problem so If I do use sets I pick the smallest bulbs from the bucket and no bigger than a dime.