Bon, Remember that onions (and all the other types of alliums that we grow for food) are biennials. This means that normally they grow the first season and flower at the end of the second season. Their first season occurs when the seed is grown to transplant size and then the transplants are pulled, bundled and shipped to consumers. Once the consumer plants the onion transplants in the ground, the plants begin their second season. What should happen in the second season is that the roots grow, the leaves grow and elongate, more leaves form, etc. If nothing abnormal interrupts this second season, you will get harvestable bulbs, normally in the June-July time frame, though sometimes I have short-day types ready for harvest at the end of May. If you were to fail to harvest those bulbs, the leaves would die back, and then when growth resumed, they'd flower. The flower stalk would split the bulb and it would be of poor quality. If something unusual interrupts the second season, the onions often bolt and send up a flower stalk. I won't say it happens to 100% of them. Sometimes a few bolt, sometimes most of them bolt. Once that happens, they won't bulb up because they are putting all their energy into producing seeds. The something unusual that interrupts their second season could be something as simple as a few consecutive nights with temperatures below 45 degrees once the onions have at least 5 leaves, but also could be very heavy rainfall, overfertilization early in their growth cycle or anything else (like being transplanted again) that disrupts the normal growth that began to occur after you put the plants in the ground the first time. Each variety responds to interruptions in different ways. Some bolt. Some seem to stall and just not grow well. Some seem to grow fine and don't bolt but produce very small onions instead of the nice big bulbs one expects. There are so many variables involved that you cannot predict with certainty what will happen. DIfferent varieties respond differently, and even different plants of the same variety can respond differently, but when you transplant onions a second time once their second season has started, what happens most of the time is that you do not get a good crop. Must you move them? Can't they just grow where they are now and then next year you plant that new crop of onions in the new, enlarged garden area? To clarify, they tolerate being pulled from the ground, being shipped and being put into the ground a second time because they are biennials. If you then try to move them again, you're treating them as perennials. That interruption in their growth can cause split bulbs, rerooting, bolting, etc. Will transplanting kill them? No. Onions are tough and can survive being moved repeatedly at times, but the tradeoff is you likely won't get the bulbs you want. If you want onions that you can move around that way, you need to grow perennial bunching onions----but they give you little onions, not great big bulbs. In the spring, I often take whatever onion bulbs from the previous harvest still are in storage and are sprouting green leaves, and I plant them in the garden. They'll give us beautiful flowers (because they are in the third season at this point) but they won't give us big bulbs. Usually after they flower, the bulbs will have split into many pieces. I have left those ornamental onions in the ground and often had onions come back, grow and bloom for several years in that location, but I've never tried to harvest them. I'm not sure if the new onion plants each year keep coming from those split bulbs or if they are from seeds that drop from the flower heads after they are through blooming. I like the allium flowers because they attract tons of tiny beneficial insects. By attempting to move onions that already are happily growing, you're disrupting their natural cycle and there's normally a price you pay for that. Dawn

Thank you EVERYONE! I had a great birthday. Lots of fun with the colored hair at work. Yes, gazania Moni, yes, love the purple hair...but is that in reference to the book "When I am Old, I Shall Wear Purple"? C'mon now, you will never convince anyone that you are "old". Hope your birthday was top notch! It sort of was. I was looking for something purple to wear at my party on Saturday, when I ran across the lady with the purple hair. I just thought it would be a HOOT, and it was so far. Lori and Doug and the kids won't be here now till tomorrow, and I can't wait to see their reaction. LOL My other daughter, Ulrike came yesterday to pick me up for Supper out. She said, nice wig mom... LOL, and I replied, are you sure it is a wig... Later on the way home from Supper, while at a stop sign, she looked right.... and there I was.... LOL, she said, oh, it's still purple. Moni

That made me smile! He is amazing! :) Thank you for sharing. I've wanted to learn to play the harmonica for years, but I want a teacher because I don't trust my own ear.

Cute video. But I feel you are doomed if you try to please everyone. Better to just tell them what you are having when you invite them and if they then say "can't eat that" you say "well maybe another time you can come when we are not having a holiday dinner" and carry on as planned. People if you have special foods requirements you need to stay home or go to a restaurant where you know they can accommodate you.