Amish Yellow Bottle Onions

[Paquebot]

Great promises ahead. The 48 sets have produced plants which tend to go off in every direction. The smallest ones have caught up and all putting on growth while enjoying the longer periods of daylight. Still a month away from watching the bulbs suddenly appear and expand.

Nothing holding back the 8 plants grown for seeds. Don't know if I ever saw seed heads in May before but they are quickly developing. Have to keep an eue on them so they stay within their cages.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

The smallest ones have caught up and all putting on growth while enjoying the longer periods of daylight.

It's my understanding that onions love the heat so they'll grow even faster. We're starting to get 80+ deg days here in Mass.

Martin, will you be sending some seeds again to make sets? If so, I'll be looking forward to that!

[Paquebot]

Pony, I do indeed plan to share with as many serious gardeners as possible. With 8 plants for seed, should have plenty of seed. Should be nothing to prevent it unless a tree falls on them. (Yes, that did happen before!)

Martin

[ponyexpress]

Pony, I do indeed plan to share with as many serious gardeners as possible. With 8 plants for seed, should have plenty of seed. Should be nothing to prevent it unless a tree falls on them. (Yes, that did happen before!)

Uggh, can’t imagine having a tree falling on them! We had a birch tree fall on our car once. It was bizarre because it’s usually in the garage but the one week we parked it outside, there was a windstorm and it fell on the car.

My plants at the community garden are looking good. I have a few sets growing at home but they’re smaller since they were the runts. Here’s a picture of the runts growing at home. I forgot to take a picture of the community garden.

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[Paquebot]

As you know now, the leaves do not grow up like a normal onion but off in various direction. Oddly enough, that only applies to plants from sets. When bulbs are planted for seed, almost straight up.

I got out of sync due to a large tree ranch. Now and then there may be white sets. I saved 3 or 4 one year and planted them back for seed. Just as the flowers began to open, a large walnut branch came down and totally destroyed them. Have not had a white set since.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

As you know now, the leaves do not grow up like a normal onion but off in various direction. Oddly enough, that only applies to plants from sets.

Interesting. The leaves do remind me a bit of shallots which have a similar behavior for leaves.

[Paquebot]

Yes, coincidentally my bottle onions are right next to golden shallots. Leaf growth is almost identical except a lot less with the onions. I've never counted the number of leaves but probably no more than 7 or 8. Each leaf is a ring and there's not many rings in a bottle onion.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

Here’s a picture of my bottle onions in the community garden next to some new strawberry plants. They’re doing better than the ones I have at home since there’s more sun. Plus I used the leftover runts for home.

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[Paquebot]

Looking good, Pony! You see that they do not make many leaves since there are not a lot of rings. Mine were in a lot earlier than yours and most have 5 to 7 leaves. The stems have only begun swelling in the past 10 days so I expect to have plants capable of big onions when they start bulbing.

Martin

[Paquebot]

Despite having grown them for almost 20 years, and learning best dates for most phases, never really noted when bulbing begins. I almost swear that there were just green stems two days ago. Today I note white swelling at the base of some plants. So, bulbing is about 2 weeks ahead of normal long day varieties. They are so much different that little applies to what we know of regular onions. Perhaps that's why I enjoy growing them.

Martin

[Paquebot]

Eight bulbs were planted back for seed production. Tentative count today was 32 flower stalks and maybe a few more forming. I hope that a lot of serious gardeners will want to be a part in saving this rare variety.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

Eight bulbs were planted back for seed production. Tentative count today was 32 flower stalks and maybe a few more forming. I hope that a lot of serious gardeners will want to be a part in saving this rare variety.

Wow! That’sa lot of flower stalks! My plants are looking good at the community garden plot. The ones at my house, not so good because they’re the runts.

Martin, did you plant some of your bulbs to overwinter? I’ll have to read through this thread again to get all of the tips.

[Paquebot]

The bulbs for seeds were planted last fall but then a bag of leaves placed over them. They were actually slowly growing all winter. Their flowers are just now starting to open and this will go on for probably a month.

No such thing as a runt set here. Some that I planted were barely ½" long. All bulbing OK here. Maybe not as large as they could be but acceptable.

Martin

[ponyexpress]

The bulbs for seeds were planted last fall but then a bag of leaves placed over them.

No such thing as a runt set here. Some that I planted were barely ½" long. All bulbing OK here. Maybe not as large as they could be but acceptable.

Can you explain what you mean by a bag of leaves? You filled a plastic garbage bag with leaves and placed the bag on top of the bulbs? Or just piled a bunch of leaves to cover the bulbs without using a bag to contain them?

I covered my strawberry plants this winter with a thick layer of straw and I was surprised how green the leaves were when I uncovered them in the spring.

I'll post a picture of my runts later. These bulbs were very tiny/shriveled when I planted them. At this point, the leaves are very small in comparison to the others.

[Paquebot]

In many cities, leaves are collected in the fall in leaf bags. Common size is 30 gallons. Common brand is Hefty. The bulbs could have been covered with just leaves and would have been the case if this was not a city with bag pickup. I have certain stops where I have been collecting bagged shredded leaves since 2006. Most have oak leaves or a mix with white pine needles. Most are stashed over winter and used for mulch in the spring. Two were used yesterday as base for next ComposTumbler batch.

Martin

[Whwoz]

[mention]Paquebot[/mention] , totally out of curiousity, how do you think these would go in an environment where winter maximums average around 45 to 50 F. Would love to give these a shot but dogs would pick up there scent as they come into the country.

[Paquebot]

Whwoz, I'm not sure of what your day-length would be. These are long-day type by American standards. I've tried N varieties here and they didn't bulb. These can only be grown in two stages, once to make small sets and then to make bulbs. If there are onion sets available in Australia, and they are produced there, then these bottle onions would also grow somewhere down there. And, someone would have instructions and dates. If so, hope to have seeds to share this fall.

Martin

[Whwoz]

Martin, day length minimum hours is around 10.5 hrs. Maximum is up in the region of 14 hrs during February. Would like seed as they sound interesting, not aware of any other set based onions down here, but no point trying to import as customs dogs would pick them up and I can't afford the cost of a legal import.

[Paquebot]

Don't you just hate when technicalities stand in the way? We've just came off our longest day and today was 15:23 in my long-day zone. Houston, TX was 14:03 at the bottom of the short-day zone. Means that I enjoyed 1:20 more daylight today in Wisconsin than my step-granddaughter. If she were a gardener she would not be able to grow the common Ebenezer or Stuttgarter which we grow from sets. But she would be able to grow giant Texas 1015Y which I bet would do well down under. Location, location!

With that, I would have no idea what to advise to get this onion to do anything in Australia. Your day length at its maximum is far short of what it needs to produce sets. It's been tried as starting early and planted as plants in California but went to seed without producing bulbs.

Overall, don't you just hate it when a plant is smarter than the gardener? After almost 20 years it is still keeping some secrets from me!

Martin

[Whwoz]

Thanks [mention]Paquebot[/mention] , have had a better look, seems that the longest day in this area is about 14.5 hrs. Would need to go to Tasmania to get 15 hours daylight in summer. Definitely no point in trying to get them here.