It's too late for them to develop bulbs of any size now (onions are day length sensitive) and that's about to change come mid June. But you can plant them for use as green salad onions. And you can cool/dry store them and plant some this fall to overwinter and use as so-called winter onions in the spring - again not much bulb size but still useful.

Dave

what would happen to them if they were planted now, but were just left in the ground? and just used as needed. most likely there would still be a lot left growing. since we dont get any hard freezes here *just frost and an occasional short span of below freezing would they keep or rot?

Are you talking about storing the bulbs as they are now from the store? And would that be in a refrigerator or just in a cool indoor dry place? Since we get so hot and muggy here, even the garage is not cool. but we keep our house at 70-72

I always forget a stray onion or 2, and ithey survive my zone 5 winters. It's always nice to have fresh onions in the early spring here. Only downside is you will need to pull them before they flower next spring.

Yes, refrigerator if no other cool, dry storage available.

what would happen to them if they were planted now

They will grow some thick green (salad) onions and then will bolt. So like I said above, plant some now to use as salad onions and store the rest to plant in the fall. They will grow slowly over the winter and can be used as green onions through the spring and then they will bolt and go to seed.

Sets are long-day storage onion varieties. Only short-day onion varieties, planted in late winter so that they have several months to grow before the day length changes in June can grow large round bulbs in the southern half of the US. It is the nature of onions explained in great detail in any 'how to grow onions' article.

The how-to info provided by Dixondale Farms is frequently linked here in the many discussions on growing onions so you may want to read it.

Dave