Two weeks ago I shared with you that my overwintered short-day onions were starting to bolt.
Bolting is when they send up a flower stock in response to stress or age.
In our case, it was a super cold spell.
When this happens, bulbing stops.
I showed you my attempt to save them by pulling off the tiny flower buds to see if I could prompt the onion to start bulbing again.
Did it work? I don’t think so. You can see in the video that this onion’s stalk has grown up a lot after I pulled the flowering tip off, but it hasn’t started bulbing. These onions here (see video) are bulbing up but they haven’t grown a flowering tip. If they do grow that flowering tip in the future, their bulbing will stop.
All I can do is harvest the onions that have bulbs. If I don’t, the water that can leak into the flowering tip will cause the onion to rot.
I do have some onions that are bulbing up and for that I’m thankful.
I planted extra intermediate-day onions for spring to make up for losing these, so my farmstand and my family’s stock of onions should be okay.
