"John Vanini" wrote in message
...
Every year I have bought onion sets and have had a reasonable success rate
but I am considering, for the coming year, growing from seed. Has anyone
any
experience of this and can advise me of the advantages and the
disadvantages.- and, perhaps, suggest any particular variety? I have
looke4d
at the on-line catalogues but can't really make up my mind which to go
for.



My reasons or wanting to change this year is that, the sets always get too
many small onions that never seem to do very well and, though they grow,
they remain fairly small. Also, I have no idea what type of onion they are
(this is because I buy them from my allotment shop and they don't seem
certain as to the type they've bought!!!)

As regards the position of my garden (which may well make a difference as
to
what varieties I can grow) I live in Sussex, not far from the coast.

Regards,

John



For many years I've just grown sets, usually Stutgarter. However this year I
have grown both sets and seeds for the first time. I planted the seeds last
year in seed trays of seed/potting compost with the intention of getting
them into the garden late autumn. However, the elements conspired against
that as the garden was too wet to work.

So the onion seedlings were planted this Spring around a month ahead of the
sets. However, the sets have established and grown faster than the
seedlings.

Despite the seeds being much cheaper than the sets, I will be reluctant to
grow seeds again. The main problem in my situation is weeds. The garden was
pasture land a couple of years ago and I am still fighting a battle against
every sort of dormant weed seed coming up. Onion seedlings quickly get lost
amongst rapidly growing weeds. The sets got off to a better start and made
hoeing much easier. Hoeing the weeds from around the onion seedlings was
very difficult - and often resulted in severed onion stems! In fact in one
particular weed infested area I gave up and rotovated the lot back in!

David.