I need help! Every year I dutifully plant my onions and garlic, but they never do well. So I am doing something wrong. When I plant my sets in the spring, they seem to rapidly produce seed heads and I am never sure if I should cut those off to get bigger bulbs or let them go. Am I planting too late? They never form nice big round bulbs....just little bitty ones, not much bigger than the sets I planted. It doesn't seem to matter if I cut off the seed heads or not. Does my soil need something? I sure would like to have luscious onions and garlic for fall, but I really do not know what I am doing!!!!Please help!
Onions need very loose soil. and you only put the seeds in the ground a tiny bit. Until the tip of the green shoot is showing. The lady at the local plant pantry told me that they only plant the seed sets that have the green coming out the top. that way you know it is alive and will grow. I go around my onions with a small hand rake once a week and loose the soil. They love a lot of compost as well. You plant Garlic in the fall...here is a good site to help with your garlic issues. A lot of people i know have raised beds for their garlic to protect it in the winter months. http://gardening.about.com/od/vegetable ... rlic_2.htm I hope that link helps. good luck.
I agree with Gardenmama's advice. I grow garlic and onions in raised beds no matter where I live, I just don't have much luck planting it with other veggies. I use a really light soil mix and lots of compost and make sure that the soil never becomes compacted. I also fertilize with a seaweed based organic fertilizer, I am not sure why they respond to that one in particular but whatever works is what I go with. Good luck!
Garlic and onions These are great pieces of advice, thank you! But it isn't really getting to the heart of what I need to know. If I plant onion sets in the spring, I get lots of nice green growth, but a seed head forms early on. I don't know if I am supposed to cut that off, so that the bulb will get bigger, or let it go. I tried cutting the seed heads this year, but the plant just seemed to die off and I was left with an onion bulb that was only a little bit bigger than the original set. Those that I let go didn't seem to fare much better. How do people get nice big onion bulbs? Is it better to start with seeds? With the Garlic, we planted garlic cloves in late fall and in spring there was lots of nice green growth. But with these also, seed heads formed at the top very early on and the bulbs in the ground never got very big. I tried the same thing...cutting half the seed heads off and leaving half. Not much difference there either. So I am wondering if my soil is just not very good or what? Or is it JUST a matter of keeping the soil as light as possible? We did get a very late start on the garden, because of the terribly cold and wet spring. So does starting them earlier provide a larger bulb before the seed starts to form? Thanks!
Hiyah-- Let me just ask one question: When the onions began shooting, had it been wet or dry preceeding the head formation? While awaiting your answer I will say they if a head is beginning to form or has already formed--cut it off. (the sooner the better). I let one form this year when I wasn't looking and cut the head off after it had already grown too much. The onion bulb had stopped growing in order to produce the stalk and flower head atop it (that's what the bulb is actually for). Awaiting your answer to my question now. I hope that this has been helpful.
Sorry, cromba, for missing the point. I am not sure why you have seed heads early on. Are you overfertilizing? I did that one year and they went to seed way too early. I have cut seed heads off and haven't had problems- how much are you cutting off? I do know my garlic hated to be too damp. The cooler temps did not seem to affect my onions or garlic. If it wasn't for the early seed heads, I would look at the soil and see if it was too compacted. When I had tiny onions that didn't grow, the soil was the problem- for me, it wasn't loose enough for them to grow. I amended it and was successful. I am emailing a friend in your area. As soon as I hear back from him, I will pass it on to you. I know he grows onions, not sure about garlic. Don't give up!!
Onions & Garlic Oh thanks so much! We are in the Missouri ozarks and we had a horrible winter with so many ice storms. As a result the soil was wet wet wet until well after 4/30. So it was at least the first week of May before I could get out there and do anything. Normally around here, everybody says to start onions and potatoes late march or early april. But the ground was too wet to till. It was fairly compacted, but I did loosen it up. But, then we had storm after storm after storm...the midwest was flooded as you probably know. And I didn't keep up with it. So that is probably most of the problem. Then, by the time I noticed the seed heads, they were pretty well formed. So it sound like a little of all of the above, huh?
Bolting is caused by weather conditions usually, a cold spring followed by a hot summer seems to make it worse. Loose soil can also cause bolting. The plant roots are disturbed and, thinking it is starving, the onion reacts by trying to spread its seed. I've read that seed sown onions are more susceptible to bolting but my experience is the opposite, sets giving more bolting problems. ASlso in my experience, the most common cause for onion bolting is from not enough rainwater coupled with hot and dry weather. It is really difficult to say with any certainty why yours have bolted. Hopefully next season you can find onions that are not so quick to bolt (there are some types that have been developed specifically not to have this tendancy). Were yours red onioins by any chance? They seem to do it the worst.
Hey cromba, Heard back from my friend in your area. He said it has been his worst year ever for onions (this from a guy who has been there for over 10 years). He said he knows it was the constant wet weather that caused his problems. I did send him Sjoerd's advice and he said she was right about the bolting- so follow her advice! He doesn't plant garlic so he wasn't much help there. Good luck!
