I have twelve inch tomato plants that are flowering. hehe They're old enough. I was asking about them on another post. I guess the warm days and cool nights? My abandoned broccoli has taken on new life. LOL

Too weird.

bon

Carol,

I have also noticed couple of onions bolting. I removed those flower stalks. I have seen few bolting last year as well.

When I looked at the last years pics of the onions beds at this time of year, they were very healthy, more leaves, started farming bulbs but this years onions seems to be bit slower.

-Chandra

-Chandra

I have some onions bolting, some are starting to bulb a little. Many of the winter onions I started from seed last fall are bolting. All my Elephant garlic is bolting. I know so little about onions and garlic and how much of this is expected. I don't know if I should punch the stalks off or not.

My big surprise for the day was ICE, I had a small amount of ice on the pickup windshield when I went to help the folks this morning. We also had heavy fog. I think the garden will be ok. I almost never plant warm season crops till after the first of may for this reason.

Larry

Y'all, I am going to guess it is the erratic weather. Onions can bolt as a result of different kinds of stress, including erratic temperatures. This is especially true if your plants were larger than the diameter of a pencil when transplanted into the ground. Anything that causes their growth to stall while they're young plants can cause bolting after growth resumes. The plants can "interpret" the stall as a dormant season. Then, when they resume regular growth they "think" (I know plants probably don't think, but that's the best word I can think of, lol) it is their second season and, being biennials, they then begin to go to seed.

I want to stress that bolting is a natural occurrence that very rarely is the fault of the gardener. It is just one of those things that happens, and to some extent it can happen almost every year to some degree. It is a rare year when there are no onions bolting in anyone's gardens.

None of my onions have bolted, but I lost a lot of the ones in the main garden when we kept having heavy rainfall not long after I planted them. I think two back-to-back 3" rainfalls on already heavily saturated soil pretty much doomed those. The onions in the Peter Rabbit garden are fine. I always overplant, so if all I had was the ones in the Peter Rabbit garden, I'd still harvest too many. There's about 50 left in the main garden, and I have been harvesting them as green onions anyway.

It could be some of the onions in the main garden, which have been more stressed than those in the Peter Rabbit Garden, would have bolted just like what y'all are seeing now had I not been regularly harvesting them as green onions.

Chandra, Slower growth could be stress-weather, specifically stress from the erratic weather, or it could be that they have used up the available nitrogen in the soil and need to be fed a high-nitrogen fertilizer.

Larry, Once they start bolting, you might as well harvest them and eat them. The bulbs will not get larger because once the flower stalk begins to form, that is where they are putting all their energy. If you leave them in the garden and it is wet, moisture can get into the part of the onion via the area where the seed stalk is coming up out of the plant, and that moisture can cause rot. At the first sign of bolting, I remove the bolting onions and use them.

Because alliums are biennials, they are prone to bolting if anything stresses them, so what y'all are seeing is typical. In fact, in the latest monthly newsletter from Dixondale Farms, Bruce "Onionman" Frasier addressed the issue of bolting, splitting and bulbing (not that I think bulbing is an 'issue'). I've linked that newsletter below, and I am pretty sure it always is the topic of his April newsletter every year because April is about the time that onions planted in warmer parts of the US would start to bolt if they are going to bolt.

The ice doesn't surprise me, Larry. Anything cold prior to the end of April isn't a huge surprise. In recent years, I have planted later and later because of the occasionally cool nights that have hung on into May, but I took a chance and planted early this year and so far it has worked out well. I watch the weather closely though because the risk of frost or freeze damage is so high when you take a chance and plant early. If I can make it 2 more weeks without late cold weather causing damage, my plants will be home free.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: April 2012 Dixondale Newsletter

So far I haven't had any bolt. Although I ended up only planting one bunch(Candy) of the Dixondale onions. All the rest I started myself. I saw some nice onions last Saturday a local greenhouse owner had started and had for sale. My onions are doing great so far. Those I received seeds for late are a little smaller but hopefully will be ok. They seem to be catching up and growing faster than the others. They are both varieties from Burrell's for this area and climate. I've only had a few years where I never saw any bolting. So will be curious how those I started do this year. Jay

Some of my onions are starting to bulb, but I'm not seeing any flower stalks yet. I've been picking some green onions as I need them to space the remaining ones out a bit more, but there are several that are still too close together. I wish DH liked onions!

I have had several bolt this year, as I did last year and the year before last year. And this year, size wasn't the problem. It's not a big deal for me because I always plan on picking some for green onions, so I just pick the bolting ones. Now if they ALL bolt that will be a disappointment.

I planted a full bed of Candy onions and they are fine so far except for a couple of empty spots. I found holes on 2 occasions and I suspect it was the neighbor's cat who thinks all boxes of dirt belong to him.

I planted one intermediate sampler in the ground then a variety of different kinds to finish out the bed. They were kind of leftover things and some were short day, some were long day, etc. Day before yesterday I added mushroom compost to the bed because they had not had any additional fertilizer since they went in the ground and I wanted to add some before they started to bulb. I noticed one small section that had started to bulb, but I think they are the short day ones, which is no surprise. Most of my onions only have about six leaves so I was hoping they wouldn't start to bulb yet.

I think I will still get plenty unless the bolting gets much worse than it is now but they may not be very big unless they get some more leaves quickly. Oh, I know it's only April, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

I covered things last night because I saw a forecast for 36 and clear, and it had been lowered twice during the day. Then the late news said we could have a frost here, so I was out there again last night covering more things.

I checked the temp about 2:30, 3:30, and 7:00 and didn't see anything lower than 41, but the Mesonet low says 33 for our county. At my house it was not clear, but instead was very foggy. That probably helped me. I didn't have any damage, but sure had a lot of things to uncover this morning.

My min/max thermometer bit the dust and I need to buy a new one. Does anyone have a suggestion?

My onions are looking pitiful right now and it's all due to the weather. I raised them myself from seed this year and they were beautiful, perfectly-sized things. Then we got hit with a few freezes. *sigh* I know they can take some but I think this was just too much too many times for the poor plants. I'm going to have to go buy some replacements now.

Diane

I just buy whatever brand of Min/Max thermometer the big box stores have and haven't found that one is any better than the other.

Yesterday I found three onions bolting in the big garden, so I'll pick them to use with lunch and dinner today. Really, as erratic as the weather has been, it isn't a surprise.

Diane, I've had that happen a few times too, where each freeze hurt them a little more and a little more until they just couldn't take it any more. I'm sorry you lost your lovingly-raised-from-seed onion babies.

So, if you're still having late freezes.....you haven't been insanely hot like we have been? Parts of OK will be in the 90s tomorrow, and a few unfortunate locations will likely break 100 degrees. It is too early for that!

I know it is only April, but it has been so warm for so long that it feels like it should be late May, although I am glad it isn't.

Dawn

Dawn, our temps have been all over the place this spring. We've had freezes and we've had temps in the 90s. Today's high is supposed to be in the mid to upper 80s.

There's just no predicting this stuff.

Diane

Diane, So, your weather has been just like ours. I thought maybe you'd get lucky and get "better weather" when y'all moved there. Apparently that didn't happen.

The weather makes every day around here an adventure.

Dawn