Giant Onions

[Suzanne]

In January this year I was given some saved seeds from giant onions. I had a warning that they may be hard to germinate - but persevered and got a number of little plants from them, which I have planted out at about a foot spacing. I was looking at some seeds in a catalogue and they say giant onions grow to about 6lb! I am now very worried that a foot spacing is not going to be enough.

Has anyone else grown onions like these? Will they cope with the space I have given them, and do they need special watering and feeding to get to 6lb?

Any help gratefully received as I would like to do well with these it would help enormously with my allotment cred!

[Suzanne]

[PAULW]

Foot spacing is plenty, keep them damp give them growmore, a feed of comprey juice once a week and a feed of potash once a fortnight and just enjoy.

[Tee Gee]

The key with 'large' onions is they must never run short of water or feeding and the leaves want to be kept vertical at all times, even if it means tying/propping them up to support canes.

Apart from this there is no particular difference between growing them and normal sized onions from seed.

The experts are likely to grow them under cover e.g. tunnel or greenhouse.

There is some onion growing info here; http://tinyurl.com/yzxd7y

[davy1]

I think you may be a bit to close, If you did not prepare a trench for your onions and have a sol PH of about 5.5then don,t expect great results. Onions love fertilizer and will take about twice as much as normal veg. I would suggest a top dressing of bone meal or rock phosphate which is high in phosphorus I feed the young plants on chempac No2 building up to chempac No 8. never feed or water directly onto the onion keep it moist but never over water. Support the onions leaves by upright sticks and string around the onion as if it was growing up a chimney. Stop watering as soon as the leaves appear to be dying off. Good Luck

[Suzanne]

Thank you all for your help. If I have any success I'll take a piccy and post it on the site.
:)

[davy1]

The show onions i am growing this year are from John Sifford. What he uses is B&Q compost manure and feeds with with watered dried fish blood and bone. The trouble with trying to big onions you are aways looking for that one onion,  the  exceptional one from which you can get your seed. We kept a couple of twelve pound onions back for seed last year they will be next years onions

[growmore]

Hi Davey1, Do you strip em before putting em down for seed? ...
Any pics of the 12 pounders....cheers Jim...

[davy1]

Do you mean photos of the ones we are trying to seed or the original onions.

When you get a good seed onion you clean it back and leave about two inches of neck on, you then turn it upside down in a bucket root upward ( the rim has to support the onion ) and let the juices drain out of the onion. When the onion starts sprouting you then plant the onion in your container to bring it into seed.

[davy1]

I forgot to mention you trim of the roots. What you have created is a very large onion set

[cambourne7]

at what age ( ie how long after germination ) should you start feeding?

[davy1]

That purely depends on how often you pot on. There is about six weeks feed in potting compost so if you are continually potting on there is no need to feed till your onion is in sittu. then again if you have prepared a bed all the feed will be there.
When my show onions are in the last pot i start to feed with Chempac No 2 when they are in the trench i feed once a week with watered fish blood and bone alternating aech week with chempac No8

[growmore]

Them's grand  onions ..

[Rohaise]

Davy can you tell me ...does adding fertilizer ...grow more and such  like, not affect the flavour ?  Rohaise 

[Tee Gee]

Them's grand  onions ..

I like the leeks better they look well from my view!!

[davyw1]

ROHAISE. I think that is one for the hortricultorist on the site not me. Every one has there own opinions and ideas. Its like asking if manure sweetens the soil does it there for sweeten your veg. A few years ago one of the lads brought some tomato,s up and on biting, they tasted of jays fluid because the grandson had picked up the wrong can and watered them with the jays fluid and the tomato sucked it up.
But i do believe you get better results from using both fertilizer and manure

Davy

[davyw1]

TEE GEE  I would love to show you the close ups bur unfortunately i tried to update my profile and locked myself out of the site so i had to re-register to get back on. So cant upload the photos.

DavyW

[Rohaise]

 Well Davy, they certainly look magnificent !      :D  Rohaise

[cornykev]

You certainly know your onions Davey.   ;D ;D ;D