Stephen wrote:
Hello,

This year I have tried to grow onions for the first time. I ordered
onion sets from the well known catalogues and I planted an over
wintering variety and another variety in the spring (I can't remember
their names at the moment, I will have to check). I am pretty sure
that they were heat treated, which I read is supposed to stop bolting.

I've never grown them but my dad grew them from seed every year.
When it cam time for transplanting in their alloted bed, we'd dig the whole
bed out 15-18 inches deep and a six inch layer of horse manure went in,
mixed with newspaper, cardboard, last years waste vegetation and any other
organic material to hand, this was forked intoa few inches of subsoil and
then the whole bed was topped off with a mixture of compost, manure and
topsoil.

He only ever did this for onions, i don't ever remember seeing any go to
seed and they all grew very large and were very hot when picked fresh, when
harvested, we'd tie them in bunches of 3 or 4 by their dried out stalks and
they'd last all winter