Potting up Giant Onions

It may be very cold outside but the onions are continuing to grow quickly in their indoor home!

Day 40

I have potted the best of the onions up into 1 litre pots. One of the key things at this stage is to grow lots of seedlings and then gradually select the best onions along the way. The exact ones to select still seems a bit of a mystery but I try and identify those that are growing strongly and forming a good root system. I have potted up 18 that I have grown from seeds.

At this point I am stopping the 24 hour light period. This is slightly earlier than I wanted too but the onion pips that I am also growing are showing signs of bulbing something I would like to avoid. I have reduced the light to 9.5 hours and will gradually increase the light every 10 days until we get to 12 hours light at the end of March.

The following photo is of one of the onion pips showing how well the root system has developed so far. I am not sure if I will continue many of these through to giant bulbs as although the plant can seem advanced they can finish early.

Nick is one of the directors of JustSeed Ltd and has been growing giant veg for a number of years as well as many other interesting and unusual plants