On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 09:57:13 +0000, JB
wrote:

~On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 20:55:36 -0000, "andrewpreece"
wrote:
~
~
~"keith ;-)" wrote in message
...
~ When is it safe to start planting onion sets,they are starting to sprout
~in
~ the bag and going soft?
~ From spring onwards,it says on the bag but is it too early?
~ I live in Nottingham ,East Midlands.
~
~No, get 'em in. AFAIK you can put them in just after Xmas! Mine are in....
~
~Andy.
~
~I ordered some red baron onion sets from organiccatalogue.com which
~say they are not expected until 11 April. These are heat treated but
~even so is that going to be too late to plant?

Don't go there. I rang Marshall's the other day asking where on earth
my heat treated New Fen Globes were. They said they'd had a problem
with the treatment and they wouldn't be dispatching them until after
Easter - and I have Easter week off to do allotment planting! Argh!

To get the best crop you have to get as much leaf on them as possible
before midsummer, as each leaf has a corresponding layer in the bulb.
When the bulbs start to fatten up in late June, the more layers the
bulb has, the fatter it gets.

So the later these perishing onions arrive, the worse the crop. I
moaned at them! (And went and bought some Turbo sets from the local GC
so I actually have *some* onions!)

When the HT ones arrive, I shall plant in large modules and keep them
under glass until they have a lot of leaf, hoping they grow faster in
the warm.

Having said that, I just found a tray of small New Fen Globes from
last year's relatively poor harvest that I'd forgotten about. Most are
perfectly sound, and are now being eaten. So they definitely store
well!


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

Please remove onmaps from replies, thanks!