2019-2020 Onion Chronicles.

[Nan_PA_6b]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Daylight savings time is ending the coming Sunday.
I wonder if it is going to mess my onions up.

[Worth1]

Garlic coming up.
IMG_20191029_15194.jpg

[Worth1]

The store bought mystery green onions I planted are putting on their second new leaves.
Tonight will be the cold test for all of the baby onion plants and cabbage as it is getting down to 31 degrees.
Happy Halloween.

[MrBig46]

Yesterday I bought the seeds of root parsley, spinach, onion and shallot. In the garden I have two flowerbeds ready to sow these seeds before the soil freezes. It's just an attempt I don't know what to expect from. Mainly I am interested in germinating parsley with which is a problem during spring sowing. I have never grown shallots from seeds, so I wonder what it will be like. It's a hybrid.
Vladimír

[gdaddybill]

I'm a bit late with this but NESeed.com (New England Seed and they have a catalog) is a good source for short day onions. They must sell all over the country to small farm operations-almost typed small farmers but that might get moved to the joke thread. They also have lots of tomato varieties and Italian varieties.

[Worth1]

Thanks for the link.
Here are the store bought green onions as of today after the freeze we got last night.
The wee babies are doing fine as well as the garlic and cabbage.
IMG_20191101_50828.jpg

[Worth1]

Yesterday when I got home I did some probing and the elephant garlic has taken root and the tops are starting to bud out.

[DonDuck]

I've often read elephant garlic is not a true garlic. It tastes like garlic to me, and most stores sell it as garlic. If it is not garlic, what is it?

[imp]

In the onion family, a type of leek, I think. I grow it often and like using it quite a bit.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by DonDuck

I've often read elephant garlic is not a true garlic. It tastes like garlic to me, and most stores sell it as garlic. If it is not garlic, what is it?

In my opinion it is its own thing which it is but named garlic.
It looks like and grows like for the most part like garlic.
It has the chemical compounds of both garlic and onion.
One of which onions dont have but garlic has and the other of which garlic has but not onions.
They are all in the same family and genus and even very close kin in order to the agave.
The species is where things start to change when it comes to onions, garlic, elephant garlic, leeks, chives and so on.
Allium is the Latin word for garlic. allium sativum is the Latin word for cultivated garlic.

A very long rabbit hole to say the least.
I have spent hours in it exploring on and off.

Much like the one that our peppers are in and how they are named throughout the world.
Such as paprika pimento chilies and so on and how the word use is swapped around.

[CassInVic]

Hi Werth and any other seasoned onion growers.

A few of my onions have started to bolt/send up flower stems (Australian spring season) which I have picked off.

Will these bulb up any further or should I pick and eat those ones now?

Appreciate your opinions, this is my first year growing regular onions.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by CassInVic

Hi Werth and any other seasoned onion growers.

A few of my onions have started to bolt/send up flower stems (Australian spring season) which I have picked off.

Will these bulb up any further or should I pick and eat those ones now?

Appreciate your opinions, this is my first year growing regular onions.

You need to pick and eat them now they think it has been two years due to weather fluctuations.
Our you let them go to seed and collect the seed if they aren't hybrid.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Worth1

You need to pick and eat them now they think it has been two years due to weather fluctuations.
Our you let them go to seed and collect the seed if they aren't hybrid.

If you catch them making a seed stalk early enough and break it off at the base they will sometimes go on to make a good bulb. If it is done too late you might as well pull it and eat it. I start looking for and breaking off those baby seed stalks as soon as the onions start swelling to make onion bulbs.

I ordered my onion seed this year from Everwilde Farms and from Sustainable Seed company as both have a good selection of short day onions. I gave up trying to grow medium day and long day onions decades ago. It was just too frustrating and the results were usually poor but some years they would do okay. My favorites now are 1015, Red Burgundy, Red Creole, White Bermuda, and Red Granex. I grow Texas Grano but I haven't had as good a result with them as with the 1015. I just love those red ones when they get big and I can put a big slice on a burger.

I start all my onions in mid October thru mid November in the greenhouse in pots of DE as it is so much easier to get the onions out when it is time to plant them out in the garden as long as I let the DE get fairly dry before removing them all at once and shaking the DE off the roots and separating them. I have a good stand right now with all my onions except from some two year old Bermuda seed which looks to have germinated at less than 50%. I have some newer ones so I will probably start some more in a week or so. I like to set Bermudas out a bit later anyway since they make the best keepers when they are only about 3 to 4 inches. If they have too long to grow they tend to get too large and the outer layers split causing many to rot in storage.

Bill

[Worth1]

Picked up two more heads of elephant garlic at the store yesterday.
Will plant them today maybe.

[bower]

We never see elephant garlic here. Maybe it shows up rarely, I've heard it discussed but never seen one myself. They charge a fortune for it, is pretty much the tale. Don't forget to post pics, Worth.
@Vladimir, it would be cool if I could sow shallots in the fall here, but I wonder if they would survive to sprout. Then again, I saved every seed I could find from my crazy bed of flowering shallots this year, partly because I didn't want to let the seeds fall and face a "feral shallot" situation. So in my mind, they could survive.... I'm just not sure.