Post by annon101 on Jan 1, 2019 11:44:47 GMT 1
************************************** WARNING ********************************************
This post is not for the faint-hearted. It discusses the growing of onions in an obsessive way. It is wholly unsuitable for those who buy onions in a supermarket, and who treat onions with contempt, regarding them as an almost worthless thing, cheap, bought by the bagful for nuppence, and only used because the recipe you're following says that you should include them, and if it weren't for that, you wouldn't bother...
'Doux de Cevannes' is a French variety of onion. I've bought 5 packets of seed, each containing 500 seeds, because the supplier was selling them off cheap.
But also because they had 'Doux' in the name. I take this to mean 'mild', as opposed to the eye-watering ones we grow in the UK....
Mild onions feature in, say, Greek Salad, and so are essentially not for cooking but for eating raw.
We use Spring onions to achieve the same sort of effect in a salad, and so I've got to thinking that these French seeds could also produce something similar to spring onions, if picked young, and also full-size onions if left in the ground longer, but always mild, and not for cooking......
I usually grow onions from little bulbs (sets) but can't find any mild varieties (except red ones, but they just don't seem to be the same as the Greek-style ones).
So I've sown seed in pots, 2 - 3 per pot, which are now up, and I'll wait until March to plant them out. But I'll plant them as potfuls, not separate them as individuals, cos I've read that it's feasible to plant and grow-on a few together,
so it's worth a trials this year to see if that production method works out for me....
Onion sets are heat-treated to prevent them from bolting and running to seed. My seed-sown ones are likely to show some inclination to bolt, in some cases, as do some lettuce, so I'm growing 100's of them with the intention of just pulling out and throwing away those that don't grow well.
Seed-sown onions are also said to be vulnerable to attack by onion fly, unlike onion sets, which is another reason for planting out in bunches, without disturbing them, cos it's damage at this stage which releases the smell of the onion, which attracts the onion fly.....
All things are possible. All things can go pear-shape. If it were easy I wouldn't do it, cos that would be boring and would demand little from me. When I win, I feel a buzz. When I lose - oh well!
Yes, I've gone on about onions too long.