You pulled them way too early and they didn't have a chance to bulb up properly. Onions need specific daylengths to trigger bulbing.

Rodney

Agree - early to mid-July. And in your location you can really do best with short day varieties. Don't know what those are. Were they plants or sets (little bulbs)? Variety name? Just use them as salad onions.

Dave

Oh no! Now that I've pulled them up, are they goners? I planted them in September, so they've been in the ground 7+ months (the label, I believe they were Red Burgundy, said that they should be ready to harvest at 6 months). Was fall planting a bad idea? A few of them started to produce a flower bulb.

When the flower stalks start to go up, things are just starting to get interesting. If you want bulbs, snap off the flower stalks (eat them) and continue to wait. Yes, now that you've pulled them, your only choice is to eat them like they are, and I wouldn't expect them to keep long. You tell onions are nearing ready when the tops start to die back. When at least 1/3rd the tops are mostly yellow, I usually will knock the tops over, and give them a few more days for the bulbs to be ready to dig.

Red Burgundy is a short-day variety and late fall planting is normal is in the south. But the "6 months" is just a guideline. I find 7-8 months to be more realistic and I don't plant until late Oct. This fall consider a later planting date like Nov. or even Dec. if your weather permits. Then leave them until after the days start to shorten.

You might also want to do some reading on trimming onion tops as many find it encourages more bulb growth. The link below is a good source of all kinds of how to grow onions info.

Dave

http://www.dixondalefarms.com/learn

Only option now is to eat them. I suggest firing up the grill, give the onions a light charring, dip them in a sauce of your choice, and enjoy. :)

Rodney

You can also chop them up and freeze them in measured amounts to use for cooking.

Dave

For harvest date, trust the plant, not the instructions. That's especially true in the case of onions. For day-length-sensitive onions it's generally not "how long" but "when". If these onions "wanted" to bulb in mid-July, then they were going to bulb in mid-July whether you planted them in August, September, or October. Planting them at the wrong time might cause them to fail, but if they don't fail, they will still bulb when they wanna bulb.

That looks like a nice crop of young onions--I'd suggest finding some recipes, enjoying them over the next couple of weeks, and waiting longer for harvest next time. They will probably need refrigeration.

I am a little concerned that you saw flower stalks. That might mean that you were right to pull them, because when that happens, the onion is about to produce seed and die, and you may as well eat the fresh onions in a hurry. I'd suggest looking up the variety and your exact location, to see if that variety is suitable for overwintering in your location. People's posts strongly suggest that it is, but the flower stalks are worrying.

You might ask, if it's not suitable, why were they selling it? But sometimes stores sell the wrong varieties, and also sometimes they sell plants/sets for scallions without any intention of people growing them for bulbs.

Edited to add: Ah. Googling, I see that warm/cold weather fluctuations can cause bolting in overwintering onions. I've never overwintered onions--I grow Copra in the summer and sometimes garlic and shallots, not onions, in the winter--so I didn't know that.

Thanks everyone! This was really helpful, especially the Dixon Dale Farm link. They were so shallow and the roots were all still intact, so I took my chances and re-planted them, snipping the tops. Mixed in a couple handfuls of worm castings and hoping for the best! Disappointed that the local nursery didn't warn me, but I'll try planting them much later next year (Nov or Dec). It really doesn't cool down here until then. Thanks again!