Onions

Gardentoad · Post by **Gardentoad** » Jun 01, 2008 11:19 am

I planted onions for the first time this year.
I planted yellow sweet and red from sets.
They have only been in the ground about 3 weeks and many of them are sending up flower buds.
I don't know what I did wrong to have them bolt so soon.

Should I go ahead and pull the bud off or pull up the whole thing or just let it go and wait on it to die down?

kHT · Post by **kHT** » Jun 01, 2008 1:21 pm

Gardentoad, I just cut their tops off to sign to them to grow below. I don't do onions much due to where my garden spot is located and the heavy clay we have.

Gardentoad · Post by **Gardentoad** » Jun 01, 2008 3:59 pm

Do you cut the whole top of or just the flower shoot?
If all of it do yoou make it even with the ground?

I have heavy clay too but I mixed in compost, peat moss and vermiculite. I raised the bed about 6 inches.

I'm trying to grow everything I put in my salsa this year.

kHT · Post by **kHT** » Jun 01, 2008 7:32 pm

I just cut the top flower part off but I guess you could cut
it off at the ground? This is our second year with them and we really enjoyed them last year.

wishiwere · Post by **wishiwere** » Jun 04, 2008 12:52 pm

I'd just cut it off under the flower and hope it continues to grow. If you cut it short, it won't be able to get the sun's rays to grow more onion below.

Sorry, I've never had mine bolt. Did you make it too fertile or add fertilizer?

I have really sandy soil, which onions love. THey don't like to be watered too often either. IF i have manure I put it down under where they're roots are planted so they grow to it, but not in their soil around them. I do fertilize when I first put them in the ground with regular old k-grow or what I have. Then water only as needed.

Maybe the soils just TOO rich for them and they're flowering instead of growing roots as an annual will do?

Gardentoad · Post by **Gardentoad** » Jun 04, 2008 2:53 pm

I cut off the bloom stalks. It may be because it got warm, highs in the 70s, then cool highs in the 50s, then warm, then cool and now warm for good so I may have planted them too early.

We have had very wet weather here latly too. The last two weeks it rained 2 or 3 days each week. It rained all day yesterday and pretty hard today untill afternoon. They are in a raised bed but clay soil with peat stays damp a while so they might just all rot.