I planted my onions that I started from seed and about half of them didn’t make it. Lots of attrition. It’s very frustrating to put in all that time and effort and have precious little to show for it.
I got frustrated and just put a bunch of the seeds, the seeds went right in the ground where the missing plants were. I don’t know how soon they’ll come up and if they’ll get to a decent size before bulbing time hits.
I’ve had better luck other years.
I’m interested in trying to grow my own onion sets. The information online is not very specific. I get that they need to be sowed thickly to force the bulb size to remain small. Other than that, when should I start them, when should I harvest them, and how do I store them to keep them from rotting or drying out and dying until next spring? The bulbs are so small.
FWIW, I still have onions left from last year’s harvest and only a few have started sprouting. They have lasted really long for me this year.
I have never put that much effort into onions. Wisconsin grows SO MANY ONIONS (and potatoes and carrots and other root crops) that they’re always cheap and plentiful to me. The entire center of our state is ‘Sandy Loam.’ Toss a tater in, get a zillion of them back, LOL!
When I DO grow onions, I just buy the bags of mixed bulbs at Walmart or the Hardware Store.
I have learned that in our quest for self-sufficiency, not EVERYTHING needs to start 100% from scratch.
Have you read: ‘Make the Bread, Buy the Butter?’ It’s a great book showing the economics of things we should do ourselves and things that are better off to buy at market or locally if possible.
It opened my eyes and has saved me a lot of work and heartache - because some things I’m just not good at!
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt/dp/1451605889