My Garden

Flowering onion

Last post 05-10-2009 6:47 PM by tony. 8 replies.

• 20/08/2009 05:19 PM

  stone_the_crows Location: NW1 Joined on: 16 Jun 2008 Posts: 31

  Reply | Contact Hi all,  One of my onions has started to flower - and a very interesting looking flower it looks too. It seems to be a bulb-shaped head that contains loads of little flowers, although they haven't bloomed yet.   From peaking through the soil the onion itself looks quite decent - a couple on inches across - but will the flower affect it at all? None of the others look like they're going to do likewise.   Cheers! stc

• 20/08/2009 05:31 PM	In reply to
  sue1002 Location: Ipswich, Suffolk Joined on: 06 Sep 2005 Posts: 5,200	Reply | Contact I think with it flowering, all it's energy will go into flowering rather than into the onion itself.  If you let it complete flowering, you'll have lots of seeds to grow some more next year and all for free sue1002

• 22/08/2009 10:02 AM	In reply to
  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743	Reply | Contact And the onion will be inedible, the seeds might produce a surprise though? digger

• 22/08/2009 12:10 PM	In reply to
  stone_the_crows Location: NW1 Joined on: 16 Jun 2008 Posts: 31	Reply | Contact  Oh - will it definetly be inedible? it looks quite a decent size already - will the flower cause changes to it?

• 22/08/2009 12:57 PM	In reply to
  JamesT Location: Cheltenham Joined on: 20 Aug 2009 Posts: 6	Reply | Contact As you probably know onions are the same family as Alliums so I think it's good to grow them for their flowers not just their edible bulbs. Garden maintenance in the Gloucestershire

• 22/08/2009 01:36 PM	In reply to
  stone_the_crows Location: NW1 Joined on: 16 Jun 2008 Posts: 31	Reply | Contact  I didn't know that...! in fact, i shall go google what an allium is right now! :-) But i'm sure i can deal with losing one onion as the flower looks pretty interesting - thanks for all your help all.    stc.

• 22/08/2009 06:43 PM

  In reply to

  Phot's-Moll Location: The sunny South coast. Joined on: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 3,347

  Reply | Contact  The onion should be OK to eat now, but it won't store and you'll need to remove the flowering stem. If you leave the seed to ripen (which you'd need to do if you want to try sowing them) then the onion will probably have rotted by then. The seeds should grow, but the resulting plants may have inherited the tendency to bolt - good if you want flowers, less good if you want to eat them. If I have any onions that start sprouting before I eat them, I plant them in the garden and let them flower. They're very pretty.   Whether you think you can do a thing, or think you cannot, you are right.

• 23/08/2009 08:25 PM	In reply to
  richardpeeej Location: Leicester Joined on: 22 May 2009 Posts: 809	Reply | Contact I grew some onions in my garden in wales many years ago and the same thing happened to them- a small bulb formed on the top of the stems. I just cut them off and discarded them but still ate the main onion it tasted OK to me. Richard

• 05/10/2009 06:47 PM

  In reply to

  tony Location: inverness Joined on: 03 Aug 2009 Posts: 10

  Reply | Contact I planted my wifes unwanted sprouting onions and they went straight to seed. When I've pulled some of them I find a bunch of four small onions which I've stored for next year to see what they do. The big seed heads are interesting but I cannot really distinguish a seed in each little head. I'll plant them anyway to see what happens. We've had a good crop this year with seeds from the garden centre, seems onions don't attract many pests, at least not in scotland.