This is where you can follow my Giant onion growing attempt for 2010!

I have never attempted to grow BIG onions before so I have alot to learn. I will gratefully receive any tips you have to offer.

This year i planted my Kelsae and Ailsa Craig onion seeds in January. I have been told this is a little late so I have also bought some Kelsae plants from DT Brown’s that were sown before the new year.

At the weekend I constructed a bed for some of my large onions in the greenhouse.  It is 1.2m long by about 60 and 60cm deep. In this i intend to grow four onions.

In this bed I have planted one Centurion so it can be compared to the ones I have planted in the garden. (This is a big variety but not giant so shouldn’t take up too much container space. Next to this I have planted my Largest Ailsa Craig which I planted from seed in January. I have reserved the final two spaces for the Kelsae onion plants that should arrive from Mr DT Brown sometime this week.

The soil in the container has been prepared as follows.

30% garden soil. (I have a dark silty soil that has reasonable drainage)

20% Composted kitchen waste/chicken bedding.

20% Morrisons potting compost.

30% Well rotted Horse Bedding/Manure.

For good measure i also included 100g of “Fish Blood and bone” organic fertiliser.

This has created a very nice looking growing medium indeed.  Once filled with soil I gave the container a good soaking to mix through the nutrients and to wash out excess salts from the mix. its made of rough wood but was surprisingly watertight!

24th April Update

Last week my long awaited Kelsae onion plants arrived from DT Browns.  I am completely dissapointed with them.  I cannot beleive these were planted over the Xmas break and if they were they have been grown by some completly incompetent monkeys.

I was expecting them to be at least on their fourth or fifth set of leaves by now by they are still at the seedling stage.

Here is a comparison, The plant on the left is a Ailsa Craig planted form seed at the end of January. This is one I gre in my Conservatory. The one on the right is the best of the plants received from DT Browns…

It looks like I am going to have to rest my hopes on my home grown seedlings after all!

I must have  got a reasonable mix of nutrients in the onion tub as all of the plants growing there are doing much better than the equivalent ones in big pots.

The “Centurion” planted from a Set is looking fantastic and if their were a record for a big Centerion onion I could be in for a shot!

I added a handful of chicken manure pellets to the top of the bed on Sunday. Probably unnecessary by it might just help.

That’s all for now, check back next week for another update.

May 3rd Update

Things are going well in the big onion tub,

All four onions are making good progress. Even the Miserable DT Browns Kelsae has a healthy 3rd leaf on the way.

The Centurion is still the biggest by quite some way and is now on it’s 6th leaf and 18″ tall!. The picture below is of my Ailsa Craig which I have my money on for growing the biggest of them all. Its looking very healthy are growing very fast.  We shall see. While the warm weather continues I am watering heavily every night. Anyone know the ideal growing temp for onions?  – the greenhouse is currently peaking at about 29 Celsius throughout the day.

If you have any tips or advice for growing onions please do comment below! – Thanks.

May 8th update.

Obviously with this colder spell the growth has slowed a little.  Picture follows.  In the ceramic pot is one of my kelsae seedlings.

I’ts not as small as it looks, the pot is massive. The picture below shows the plants have gained about 6 inches in height since the last update. The Ailsa Craigs now on their sixth leaf.

01 June Update

There still growing…  It sometimes seems like things are not moving quick enough in the garden, but when i look back at the pictures taken two weeks ago the progress is obvious!

The big “Centurian” now has 9 leaves and is aproaching 2.5 Ft tall. The Ailsa Craigs are just ahead of the Bought Kelsae right now. They Have 7 leaves and are about 2Ft. Not sure they are quite big enough for June but they are going well and if all goes to plan should be pretty good size onions.

The Kelsae in a pot,

Big onion tub, Furthest away is the Centurian, then two Ailsa Craigs with the Kelsae nearest.

Centurian,

Ailsa Craig,

23rd June Update

The onions are looking a bit messy right now but they are still growing which is the important thing!

In my earlier posts the onions leading the way was the “Centurian” in the big onion tub.  Second place were my Ailsa Craigs that I grew from seed and by far the smallest was the Kelsae bought in from DT Browns.

How things have changed! The DT browns Kelsae and my own Kelsae in the big pot are now the biggest, closely followed by my Ailsa Craigs. The centurian is not doing so well, it may even be starting to split from growing too fast.

As you can see, the big tub is looking a bot of a mess really. I am not worries as they are all still producing new growth every day.  I am working on a new support system to hold the leaves up just to keep things tidy.  I have never seen any noticable improvements in onion size from supporting the leaves…

The picture below shows the biggest onion right now. Its the DT Browns Kelsae that looked so poorly just six weeks ago! Amazing how it recovered. As you can see it has started to bulb nicely and is still growing very fast.

The next pic is one of my own Kelsae seedling that I decided to plant alone in a pot. It’s really growing well and has excellent form. It would be really nice if one of my seedlings ended up growing the biggest!

I have actually been really suprised by how much progress the onions in the big bed in the garden have been making lately. I actually have a couple of the “Stuttgarter Giants” that are looking nearly as big as the greenhouse grown Kelsaes right now. If I had known they were going to grow so well i would have given them a bit more space! The pic below shows how good it’s looking!

August 7th Update

This is not a good week for giant onions…

Will the terrible weather last month everything stayed so very damp. I made the mistake of continuously watering the onions in the giant onion tub. They looked to be growing well despite the damp and dark conditions. At the weekend I spotted the nasty grey leaf mould that can only mean every onion growers worst nightmare. (Botrytis). As they have all got it I am going to let them keep growing until all hope is lost but they are not going to be monsters this year!  If I get 2lb onions I will be happy.

Not too bad for a first attempt at giant onion growing. – I will be back next year so watch this space!