planting onion seed

This is info on Flat of Italy Onion (Allium - cepa) Intermediate Day from Botanical Interests. I planted this seed for the first time this year:

This Italian heirloom gourmet onion from the late 1800’s is hard to find in stores. It is very flat, bright red, and is delicious eaten fresh or used in cooking. A gourmet “cipollini” (meaning “little onion” in Italian) type, the beautiful flattened red globes are 1” high and 2”-3” in diameter. An intermediate day onion, it grows well in most areas of the U.S. Maturing in just 70 days, its sweet flavor is perfect for roasting and grilled kebabs. They should be eaten as shortly after harvesting. It is typically not a good storage onion, but the bulbs may last for many months if stored in mesh bags in a cool, dry location.

When to plant outside: As early in spring as soil can be worked. Note: Cold temperatures will cause some of the onions to bolt early.

When to start inside: Not recommended.

http://www.botanicalinterests.com/store/search_results_detail.php?seedtype=V&seedid=608

Kelly

My onion seed washed away. Someone somewhere down river will wonder where in the world all these onions came from. lol.

Jarsh, you should be able to plant your onions as soon as you can work your ground. (In other words, don't go pushing snow around to plant your sets!) :>)

catmom, it wouldn't hurt to trim your onion tops back by almost half if you want. That will not only keep them from getting to tall and skinny but will help them thicken up topgrowth. They'll also be easier to handle when you set them out.

As for bolting, it's not necessarily cold weather that causes bolting. The age of the plants, when you planted them, and the variety all come into play. Sets that are set out in the Fall of the year will often be quicker to bolt than plants that are set out. Seeds that are sown will take longer to bolt IF they don't have to deal with a lot of stress, i.e., dry, wet, dry, wet, high temps, cold temps, etc.

Shoe

Catmom trimming the young plants back will help make them stronger in the trunk section to.Ernie

Well I crossed my fingers and trimmed them all back, it was amazing to see in just a few days how they started to thicken at the bottom, thanks for the info..Now if you could send some nicer weather my way....

I almost hate to post this because it was a stupid thing.. but anyway...

We were running out of places to start seed indoors so we used a "flat" which was really just a fairly shallow, heart shaped baking pan. Now I have 22 germinated seedlings that have popped up (Yellow Parma from SeedSavers I think) and NO idea when to transplant. They're really pretty close together in the pan. Like two inches or so apart from the next.

I'm in Norcal and my things outside are doing well and sprouting. Should I literally just take a butter knife to the pan and pull them out, or should I wait for them to grow more tops first?

(In the pic you can see the pan in the bottom right, before they came up)

Momster, hope your garden did well this year.

I just came in here to post success of my growing onion from seed for the first time.

I will get a photo tomorrow, havta do it quick because I have harvested and eaten half of them.

Got some nice big onions. hahaha It Can Be Done.

;-)

Well, two days later anyway, (was internet challenged yesterday) Here are some onions I grew from seed.

Mind you, this is a small mostly flower garden, but I am still tickled with this success. I've eaten four or five of the larger ones already. These are Walla wallas.

Here's a close up

And here is one that is already long gone, but it sure was pretty a couple weeks ago:

kylaluaz just think how big they would have grown in a proper garden.Ernie

LOL! I beg your pardon! My garden thinks it is quite a proper garden, thank you!

but you are so right, with enough space they could have done stunningly well.

Actually, this is truly the end of season..... for most of it they did h ave a nice patch, but I did not give much of my room over to onions in general. but what you see is not their glorious peak either.

K sorry did not intend to put down your gardem but it was you who said it was mostly a flower garden. I simply meant had you given your onions room to grow they may have gotten larger. What was I thinking. By all means grow it the way you like.I can see the begginer thread needs no help so ta ta.Oh by the way this pic was july 6th and we harvested Aug 20th