I've grown Dixondale onions, ordered directly from Dixondale, for around a decade or so now. They always outperform onions purchased from a local store. I believe the reason is that they are shipped so quickly after being dug or pulled from the ground. They pull the onions, bundle them, box them up and put them in a refrigerated truck for transport to the shipping point. This helps keep them fresh. Mine usually still have fully green foliage when they arrive and when they are planted. They take off quickly and grow fast, unlike dried-up bundles of onions purchased from local stores. I think much depends on how the individual stores handle the onions once they arrive. I've noticed that the Atwoods here keeps their onions inside the store in big black tubs. These onions, which look to me like Dixondale's as they still are green, seem to stay fresher than those sitting outside in nurseries and garden centers in the wooden shipping crates exposed to all the elements for weeks and weeks on end. If you get them the same week that Atwoods puts them out in the black tubs, they are almost as fresh as the directly-shipped Dixondale Farms' onions. When I see crates of onions still sitting in garden centers and nurseries a month or two after they first appeared, and the onions are all dried up and look totally brown and pitiful, I just shake my head. I'd never buy and plant those. I guess ordering straight from Dixondale for so many years has spoiled me.

Used the onions to make salsa today. Will be cleaning the others tomorrow. We got close to 100

The plants are getting really large now, and a couple of them are starting to bulb. I've stopped feeding them but they are still drinking lots of water. Would it be ok to cut back a bit on the water? Am thinking it might be good to stress them a bit to force bulbing. There's a lot of water stored in the tops. .....Or should I just keep watering them well? Thanks, Ed

If you're patient, you can probably get some Green Mountain multiplier onions (they run out of stock fast). They came from seeds of Yellow potato onions. They're potato onions, but they set seeds more often, and the onions are a lot bigger. They still multiply. I've also heard a few times that regular onions, contrary to popular belief, can be more than biennials, and can become potato onions. I plan to experiment with that to see. In the meantime, I've been growing bunching onions. They do multiply. I like how Crimson Forest bulbs, too. They're not huge bulbs, but they're still bulbs, and big ones for bunching onions. All you have to do is plant more (or wait for them to multiply) to get more. They're pretty easy to grow and maintain. Some bunching onions and similar that you might check out include these: * Crimson Forest (already mentioned; cold-hardy) * He Shi Ko (shorter greens than Crimson Forest, but really tasty in a different way; cold-hardy) * Shimoneta Negi (Huge, leek-like plants; I'm not sure if these are cold-hardy) * Zebrune shallots (not a true shallot, since you grow it from seed, but it sounds similar to potato onions, especially since a lot of the customers at Baker Creek got round onions from it—although they're not supposed to be round; I'm not sure if these are cold-hardy, but I imagine so) * Tokyo Long White bunching onion (I hear these grow enough food to feed an army, with tall, leek-like plants; cold-hardy; I plan to order these from Baker Creek, today, although you can get them for a dollar at seedsnow.com, I think) In my personal experience, it seems like my bunching onions divide more the more years I let them divide. I suspect the same might be true with other kinds of onions. Maybe potato onions are just regular onions that are super old. They are the same species, after all—and it's somewhat of a mystery where they came from. So, I'm growing a giant onion variety for my experiment.