Onion varieties

I love onions. I love growing them, harvesting and tying them into ropes to hang in the porch and the kitchen. But, most of all, I love eating them - and the stronger the flavour the more I like them! So, this coming season, along with my usual sets, I intend growing a few rows of the old variety "Up-to-date" which Lawrence Hills, the great organic gardener, recommended as the best-flavoured variety, bred back in the 1890's to be eaten raw with bread, cheese and beer for the countryman's lunch. I'm going to grow them from seed and use an old recipe for feeding them with salt and soot. That's the plan anyway...

The old fellows back in the day would piss on them as well. I have grown Onions from seed meself, I found that they are prown to boult to seed even if only slighty stressed. I would sow them on the shortest day in a flower pot on a warm window sill. They take an age to grow or at least when I tried to grow them from seed. Good luck

I now have hundreds of onions (Up-to-date, Bedfordshire Champion and Unwins Exhibition) and banana shallots sown in module trays in the greenhouse - my plan is: if the seedlings are strong enough to plant out in March, out they go. If not, I'll bang in sets. Last year's crop - all grown from sets - are storing very well so far, only came across two gone bad. I eat a lot of onions.

My stored Stuttgart Giants are also storing well but the over winter earlies dont. I treat them as no more than a stop gap. I do grow spring onions from seed of course and have tried those potential monsters that can grow to five pound each, but now I make do with the sets. I have made a change with the Shallots. I have kept my own yellow shallot seed for many years but last year I introduced a more modern variety which didnot look that good in the ground but actually yielded a half decent crop.

Onion sets arrived today from Mr Midleton - pretty quick as I only ordered them on Tuesday! Three new varieties (new for me) this year: Stur, Hercules and Pink Panther. Last year's crop from sets are still keeping well, but the ones I grew from seed were a washout. I'll try again this year!

My over winter sets are not doing much at the moment. Last years main crop was not very good but although undersize are keeping well enough. I have not given this years crop a thought as yet. I normally get motivated when M M`s catalog arrives.