The only time I planted sets, every single plant bolted and I got marble sized onions. And it makes sense to me... it is what they are supposed to do.

But you have obviously done it for many years with great success.. so you will get no argument from me. But I personally sure won't try it again.

That is all my mother did for onions on the farm garden for something like 40 years, We cured them on the north side of the corn crib along with the potatoes. They lasted Mom until very close to spring, She generally used them up without throwing any of them out, too.

The keys are pretty simple according to her. Use the small sets and plant them shallow, very shallow. Those work for me, too. It is also important like any other allium to weed carefully, completely and early. Plenty of water and plenty of plant food, too, but that is really no different from garlic.

So different strokes for different folks. This year my onion crop is a disaster, but may just be small enough to use as sets for next spring. I have done that with Copra before without a single bolt then either; so we shall see if that is an alternate crop strategy. I store at close to room temperature; so my "sets" get no chill.

I will yield this that starting your own seed at the proper time to grow your own proper sized transplants ready when the time is right, is probably the best way to do it, provided you have the patience and skill to bring it off. The convenience of sets is what sells me as I often find myself time short in the spring. I definitely like the idea of alternative techniques, though, sometimes the preferred technique is just simply not available.

I have heard that onion sets available across the country are nearly always long day type onions which would account for your success with them at your northern latitude. I'm not sure that I would be able to obtain the same results here in Missouri at 38d latitude. Like Peter, I know I was never able to get good size bulbs in previous years using sets and experienced a lot of bolting.

I also shy away from using the largest Dixondale transplants in the bundle for bulbing onions as they seem to also have a higher tendency to bolt. The larger transplants are best planted at close spacing and pulled early for green onions.

Onion sets are available all over this area, from grocery stores to drug stores to hardware stores to big box stores. I look for named varieties like Stuttgarter first for yellows or Ebenezzer for yellow and whites. Reds are few and far between but Moose Tubers at Fedco has Red Baron. At 200 sets for $9 the price is right if you need that quantity. Generally a bag of 80 in most other places is a couple of bucks. If you can get it to work for you, that is the cheapest way to grow cooking onions.

Well these are long day onions. We have a heck of a time growing grainex or bermudas or the sweet Texans here at 45 degrees. I also come from a farm background. We almost exclusively grew long term keepers in what was truly a kitchen garden, originally a full acre right off the farm house (sweet corn and squashes were grown hidden from the raccoons in a nearby corn field inside the end rows of the field corn. During the summer my mother almost always had some canning going on nearly every day, although that declined when my folks got their first chest model freezer. When sweet corn came in the whole family pitched in and we harvested tubs and tubs, spent all day at cleaning and blanching for that freezer. Eventually my folks actually got a second one. From that point Mom did only a very little canning. (Not a big family as farm folks go either, just me and two younger sisters, but my folks were as they say frugal. None of us had store bought clothes until we started school, Mom sewed and baked as well as the GARDEN WAS HERS!)

You can see why I love Copra, it keeps right there in my kitchen right along side the multipliers, real handy to the stove, too.

One other thing my alliums are stored where they never get chilled. I think that also reduces bolting. This winter I will be holding copras, of course, but also Stuttgarter and maybe Highlander that never sized up for me this year. The Highlander is not likely to make it to next spring. We shall see what bolts out of that set once they get planted back. (I will also have some reds that also did not size up that may store long enough.) It made no difference this year whether they were sets or plants, all my onions stayed tiny; so I intend to replant what lasts until next spring. I think that was probably from our early heat wave which was also dry and also I was ailing just about then. I think I had some premature garlic ripening from the heat this year too. Good enough for the garlic, but not for the onions. None of these will get chilled; so we shall see if that might be a consideration.