Amish Yellow Bottle Onions

[ponyexpress]

I'm growing 5 onions (Dakota Tears, Patterson, Amish Bottle Onions, Ailsa Craig, and Candy) and 1 shallot from seed. These Amish Bottle Onion seeds were the first to pop out. About 2 days before the others.

[ponyexpress]

My Amish bottle onions seedlings are doing well. They’re in the front row. They’re the size of a fat toothpick. In a week, I will transplant them to my root trainers. I don’t plan to set them out in the garden until closer to the end of April so they reap the benefit of the warm house at night. We still get some cold spells until early May.

I do understand why people will grow sets. It’s easier to get a full sized onion back in colonial times when you didn’t have warm houses with lots of lighting to start your seeds in January.

I also planted a couple of sprouting bulbs in the garden for seed production. How is everyone else doing?

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[Tormahto]

In a few weeks I start reconstructing my garden. There's removing some seedling apples that produce poor fruit. a mayhaw where fruit looks like a failure (may give it another year), moving a paw paw, digging and moving walking onions, other alliums, mint, blackberries, raspberries, black raspberries, sunchokes, (undecided on moving) grapes and blueberries, moving a "shrub" cherry rooting if it survived the winter, asparagus, etc...

Do you think that you'll have any bottle onion seed for trade this year?

[ponyexpress]

Do you think that you'll have any bottle onion seed for trade this year?

Should have some to give away in Aug/Sept timeframe.

[ponyexpress]

I planted all of my Amish Bottle Onion bulbs so I should have lots of seeds. I think there will be around 35 plants producing seeds. Will post pictures later this season.

Meanwhile, the plants that I started from seed are looking good. Will transplant them into the garden in another 1-2 weeks.

[bower]

Sign me up, I would love to grow these next season.

[JRinPA]

Same, I'll grow some.

[ponyexpress]

A month since my last update. Here’s a picture of my onions growing. Most of them are for seed. There are a few plants that I’m trying to grow to a full sized bulb this year instead of growing from a set. Have to put a reminder in my calendar to start some seeds as sets so I don’t forget.

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[ponyexpress]

A few weeks later since my previous update, there are seed heads forming. Noticed that the onions bulbs that I planted in the fall have divided into three. Good way to expand the harvest.

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Here are some of my observations:
1. In the three rows on the right, they were planted in the fall and all have divided into three or more. Some have 5! A couple did not survive the winter so I filled their spots with seedlings earlier in the spring.
2. In the fourth row from the right, the bulbs were planted this spring. Some divided but some did not.
3. In the 5th & 6th rows from the right, they're seedlings that I started in January.

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[bower]

Very interesting about the divisions from a fall planting.

[ponyexpress]

Very interesting about the divisions from a fall planting.

Yes, indeed. I also started a pot with some seeds on June 1st to produce sets for next year. I'll start another pot next week since Martin suggested mid June to plant seeds for sets.

[ponyexpress]

I started a second pot with seeds about five days ago. They’re starting to sprout. The first pot that I started June 1st has some good growth. Lastly, seed production is looking good.

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[JRinPA]

I'm following along ponyexpress. I'm new to onions but have some going from seed this year, started late though. I'd definitely like to try these amish bottle onions. I was just reading up on them last fall, I think is the thread where I read that paquebot passed.

[ponyexpress]

@JRinPA you're referring to starting regular onions from seed, right? Those are definitely fun to do when there's nothing else to do in January. I'm very eager to see these bottle onions get pollinated and produce seeds. Should be a mega crop. I've made sure that there will be no other onion types in bloom near me so that they stay pure. I'll be curious how many seeds I'll actually get.

I plan to repeat my experiment of growing some bottle onions from seeds next January. The only difference is that I plan to give each seedling more room so they're larger at transplant time.

[JRinPA]

Yeah regular/sweet, alisa craig and spanish sweet or something, not these.

[ponyexpress]

Harvested some of my bottle onions at my house. Tomorrow, I will check the ones growing at my community garden. These were all started as seed in January like a normal onion. I can understand why they were grown as sets because it’s easier than trying to start them early in a greenhouse. The ones in the community garden are bigger because they get more light.

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I also included some pictures of the ones being grown as sets and as seeds.

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[ponyexpress]

Here is another photo with some of my onions from the community garden on the left. You can see how the average onion is bigger than the ones at my house because it gets more sun.

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[JRinPA]

Cool looking onions though. I have noticed the same with garlic, they really want that sun to size up.

[ponyexpress]

Cool looking onions though. I have noticed the same with garlic, they really want that sun to size up.

The strange thing is that it seems to make less of a difference for garlic. I still got very large garlic bulbs in my home beds even though they get less sun than the community garden beds. In other words, I don’t see much of a difference between my home beds and community garden plot for garlic. Planting in very rich soil really helps out with bulb size.

[ponyexpress]

I'm at the point where I'm trying to figure out the best time to cut off my onion seed pods to let them dry out for seeds. Anyone have advice on this? One person leaves them on the plant and shake the seeds out from time to time. Another person waits until the pod starts to brown and the snips them off to dry separately.

I did open a couple of full green ones and I see black seeds inside. I think I'll wait until they start to dry up and start to expose the seeds before clipping them off.