Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Many of my onions are flowering now (Perth, Summer).

Should I be preventing the flowers from blooming by cutting them off to make the onion put more effort into making a bulb?

Some I have cut off previously have put up a flower stem for a second time.

I think you should have harvested already Jeff, pull them out before they flower.. But, at least now you will be able to collect seed from them for next year..

Thanks for that Joel. I keep telling my onions that they should be dieing off but they keep going. Unfortunately the bulbs are not all that big.

Don't they just bend them over and thereby encourage the goodness from the leaves to enlarge the bulb?

I know this hasn't been commented on for a while - but this might help for next season.

It's natural for an onion's leaves to flop over at some point (the time depends on short/long day onions). When the leaves flop it means the onion is becoming dormant, you can help it along by bending the stalk about an inch (25mm) above the bulb. I've heard about farmers running barrels over their crops to topple the leaves.

A couple days afterward, pull them out and let them dry out. They shouldn't be able to touch each other, and when they turn a nice golden brown (for white onions) you can cut the leaves off at the bend. Don't cut too close to the bulb or the could rot while in storage.

I'm busy doing some red onions at the moment, which I am looking forward to

I have a friend who has just planted about 700000 seeds of onions which hopes to harvest in November and sell on the commercial market Let's hope all goes well. Transplanting them isn't going to be fun. Thank goodness labour is cheaper here in SA!

good luck with your onions

pictures please! I am planning to grow this on my planned AP too but I guess its a bit difficult.

Looks like the spam filter missed Fancyoutfit lol

As did the mods... maybe none of them have read this thread?