Onions going to seed

Hi can anyone give me some advice please some of my onions have produced a long stem with like a seed head at the top does that mean they,r no good to eat & should I remove them or just leave them as I havnt got a clue this is only my 2nd attempt at growing them.

 

I'm growing onions for the first time this year too; red ones..

Some of them were throwing up 'flower' stalks a few weeks ago, rightly or wrongly I removed them as soon as I saw them, I just figured that if they're not putting the energy it to producing flower and seed then it would be put in to swelling the onion. It seems to have done the trick for me, mine are doing well at the moment...:thumb:

 

Yes, cut them off ASAP and your onions will be fine. I usually cut them off quite far down the stem as it were and not just the tip of the flower. Does that make sense?

 

Seems to have been rather a bad year for this. with onions that go to seed I cut it off ASAP, but not all the way down as I want to clearly identify those ones as the first to be used and not to be stored.

But this year my shallots have gone to seed in a really big way, and as I grow them solely for the purpose of pickling them and I fear that I've lost the lot.

And I suppose it is rather a lot, as about 200 setts were planted last autumn (reduced to 20p a bag at Wilkos), so about 1,000 shallot seed heads that I'm wondering what to do with.

Any ideas?

 

I have had only one of mine go to seed this year mainly due to the fact that I have been watering them more with this prolonged dry weather we have been having.

What I do when any of mine run to seed other years is to break off the seed head and no more,then when I come to harvest the onions I use the bolted one first after I have dried it off so it doesn't have a chance to rot in storage.You can normally tell the bolted ones because the stem part of the set becomes thick on it's whole length...

Scrungee,sorry to hear you have lost your shallots this year.Mine haven't done as well as other years but I think I will get some sort of a harvest off of them though but will see next month when i harvest them...

 

I'm thinking its the dry spell thats casing onions to bolt.

I also use bolted ones first as they dont store very well, infact I start using them in the green if they have a bulb.

Not had any of mine bolt yet, I grow from seed these days and I think that makes a difference.
Was always having problems with bolting when I grew sets.

Given up on shallots as most were now running to seed.

 

That's how I feel after losing around 1,000 bulbs intended to be a whole year's supply of pickled shallots.

Might check out what they're like as they are now in stir fries.

 

John the dry spell for me was mostly May?

 

I've had about 30% of my red onions 'bolt', but none have done it for a couple of weeks now so I'm hoping that's it?

I have also got quite a few 'Turbo' onion sets just starting in to growth that I got from the Wilko's sale, so hoping they will be ok as they have been planted a little late..

 

thats intersting, to use the bolted onions first as I didn't realise that they didn't store well. I learn something new everyday.