Anybody with experience with "potato onions"?

[Cyclonemom]

COF? CM, are you gardening using Solomon's book "Gardening When it Counts"?

I'm reading it for the second time right now and am anxious to try out his methods.

YES! Although I piece-mealed my way through it (topics I liked first) I have read it cover to cover, too. How are you liking it?

Although I must warn you, he has some discrepancies between his book about COF, and what he says on the MotherEarthNews.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organ...ur-Garden.aspx

In the book, he says to use COF throughout the season to fertilize, and at the above website, he says absolutely DO NOT use COF to fertilize more than once a year. Just use a straight seedmeal or you risk overliming.

Nonetheless, I am making COF, sans dolomite lime, as it is proving impossible to find around here. Nobody has heard of it. Which is odd, because this area sits on a big strip of dolomite lime!

ETA: BTW, bbkaren, I am trying to grow onions for the same reason you are. I can't get them to grow bigger than a golfball! And we go through 3-5 big onions a week sometimes, so it is a key ingredient in our house. I am hedging my bets this year. I ordered onion plants, onion sets, and put in both walking onions and potato onions last fall. Surely out of those, *something* will grow! We'll have to compare notes at the end of the season.

[bbkaren]

CM, thanks! Great info--

[dissimulo]

Well, potato onions are the perfect choice. They don't grow bigger than a golf ball (well, rarely), so you will never have to feel like you didn't grow them large enough. ;)

It takes 4-6 to equal a medium sweet onion. But, they store better than the best storage onions in my experience. We have planted the remainder of our pantry onions in October after harvesting them the previous July (15 months). They don't all make it that long, but most do.

[bbkaren]

I don't really mind them small (except when I buy them as sets and they barely double in size! grr)...if they're sustainable.

Meaning, they're small but there's a ton of them, and I can use them to make a ton more.

It just irks me when there's a finite quantity, and they're tiny...and when they're gone, I have to go buy more at the store.

[Summerthyme]

For those having trouble growing good big onions, try some plants from www.dixondalefarms.com

They're expensive if you only order a couple/few bunches. I run around to my Amish neighbors and get orders, and we buy 2 cases or more every spring.

The WallaWallas get nice and big, and are SO deliciously sweet. The Copras don't get any bigger than a tennis ball, but store for 9 months! For BIG onions, grow Ailsa Craig or Big Daddy...

The secret to big onions is planting EARLY (cover if frost looms) and lots of compost or other balanced fertilizer. Water often, but don't drown. They are classic "heavy feeders"... need lots of food. The larger the tops grow before they start to change over to bulb producing, the bigger the bulb will be.

Oh, and make sure you grow the right variety for where you live!! Growing "short day" onions in the north will give you golf balls! Ditto "long day" in the south- they may never bulb at all.

I've grown onions from seeds and purchased sets, and I've grown my own sets once or twice, but I've never had better results than from purchased field grown plants.

Summerthyme

[bbkaren]

ST, I confess. I ordered some...I ordered the short day sampler (for TN). Like I didn't have my bases covered; now I guess we'll be overrun with onions. I say, "bring it on!" :)