Onion seeds - beyond help?

Hello - some newbie advice if possible!...

About 6 weeks ago I eagerly sowed a load of onion (bulb not spring) seeds in a propagator tray on the window sill with the intention to transplant them into modules once they had sprouted, ready to plant out after the last frost.

I've been really busy at work recently, and as such I haven't had time to transplant the onions out of the cramped tray as planned. I now have a very packed tray of onions, with long green shoots some about 20-25cm tall, all very close together.

My question is, have I left it too long for these onions to be any good? Should I ditch them and start from scratch - we only have a tiny garden, so a load of onions that turn out to be useless come autumn will be a big waste of space!

 

No, they should be fine. Wet the compost very well before potting them on (sound too short to plant out yet) As long as they've not been short of water then just grow them on and harden them off (putting them out during the day and bringing them in at night till they get used to the outside conditions)

Just planted out my Kelsae onions today, they've been hardened off already though.

Dai will come on in a second and tell you they don't like root disturbance.

 

Thanks for this advice, wasn't sure if I'd be wasting my time! I will pot them on today. When would you advise to plant out - just after last frost?

 

Size is more the issue, onions are quite hardy once they have been hardened off. My tree & spring onions were under 4inches of snow all winter & are doing fine now.

I say size because of a whole load of leeks I planted out some weeks ago, they were only about 2 inches high. Not a single one survived, don't know if it was slugs or stupid pidgeons, but I immediatly put a few more trays on the go and i'm waiting till they are about 4-5 inches to be on the safe side.

A bit of mesh or netting over the top when you plant them out won't hurt, at least it'll stop the blackbirds hoiking them out again.

 

Thanks for all the help, I potted the onions out this afternoon and they now fill the spare room window sill! I guess I'll leave it a few weeks while the weather improves and then start to harden them off once they've had a chance to get a bit bigger.

The bed I'm going to be planting them into eventually has been covered with plastic since last autumn, I felt the soil earlier, nice and warm under there so shouldn't hopefully be too much of a shock to the system when they go out.

 

Excellent, make sure its damp enough before they go out, water the soil in the morning so the water doesn't cool the soil down too much.

Like I say onions are quite hardy, as long as they don't go from 30c to 1c in a few mins they'll be fine.

You can still sow some more for sucession if you've got the room.

If you've only got a small space, you might want to consider garlic in the autumn.

You wont be self sufficient in onions but you could grow a years supply of garlic in a small plot. Just a thought

 

Hi MrJ.
Just to add, try to give them as much light as possible. This will help them thicken up a bit, especially considering they've already been made a bit 'leggy'

Cheers...Freddy.

 

They should be fine for light - they've got the free-run of an upstairs south-facing window sill!

They've actually been in good sunlight for the whole time, just they were so packed in for so long think there was a bit of seedling competition going on!:D