I tried onions from seed once. It was an abysmal failure. But, when you read the description for potatoes having been “bred” by so-and-so or some university, SOMEONE must be crossing varieties and planting seeds right?

I've been growing potatoes for a handful of years only in the Aurora garden with the slightly acidic sandy loam soil. I believe they might do well here in Westminster but the heavy alkaline clay soil would make harvesting difficult. Maybe at some point we'll get the soil improved enough to give it a go.

Starting from seed sounds interesting though I have not had issues with disease. I have always started with certified disease free potatoes generally from Nick's garden center.

Zach, onions shouldn't be too hard. They do need to be started early indoors around the same time as peppers and not sown too thickly.

Here's an idea, regarding onions.

Plant shallot seed in the garden, instead. They will grow thru the entire season in their spot in the garden. They aren't expected to make big bulbs, right?

To me, shallots are special altho they are Allium cepa just like the bulb onions. I was well into adulthood before I'd tasted one even with green and bulb onions being such a common part of my diet. You can eat shallots green but, remember - they are special and you will want a whole bunch for storage. They are dandy keepers. Since they do so well on a shelf in my garage (where it freezes during sub-zero weather), I don't even take the risk of moving them to a drier, warmer basement.

That admonition about don't eat them all as young green plants: if you buy the sets, don't eat them all during the winter or you won't have any to plant out in the spring, saving you some $. Yeah, they are a bit expensive to grow but can do just fine propagating themselves in the garden. You will still be stopping by the onion bins at the soopermarket but ... gardeners enjoy special treats.

Steve

I had decent returns on potatoes in my clay-loam garden in Littleton. Not as good as many places probably since the soil was definitely more on the clay side of the spectrum and most years was a bog during potato planting season. But not bad enough to turn me off growing potatoes for a couple years in a row there.

I was extremely excited to see how they would do in my sandy-loam up here in the river bottom last summer but they were the first plants to die from the herbicide. They will be a significant component of my garden next summer, I’ll be planting 50 row feet of them which is a lot more than I have in the past.

I found growing onions from seed to be a major pain in the @ss. First it was like planting a brazillion individual grains of rice. Not my idea of a good time. Then I read that the seeds should be started in December-January which was wrong. They were ready for the outdoors by the end of March. As often happens here, winter lasted until May and I’m pretty sure that the 6-8 weeks of lows below freezing plus several snowstorms is what caused each and every one of them to bolt. I also read that the seedlings needed a light “haircut” at such-and-such a height so I did. That seemed to provide little except to stunt them significantly. Now when I grow onions, I get plants through the mail at the end of April, just like potatoes ;). last year I found out that grasshoppers love onions though and ate the leaves down to nubs. I didn’t have any that bolted though and most of them bulbed up, though not very large due to the lack of foliage.

Zach, I read the same thing on the gardenweb vegetable forums about starting onions way early. Late February or early March is what I usually aim for and then plant out around mid April. Never been a fan of the haircut thing. I understand about feeling like planting out grains of rice but it isn't a bazillion. 60 to a 100 seems like more than enough if they do well.

Steve, I love shallots and someday I'm going to get to the point where there's enough harvest to keep sufficient for planting out the next season.

Well, I might have to try it again sometime, but planting sets is so much easier and takes up less valuable space under the lights for things like tomatoes and peppers. I'm actually not planting any onions this year. Trying to "simplify" my gardening a bit and some things just didn't make the cut this year. 60-100 would be way more reasonable. The time I did it I think I did two full flats which I think wound up being around 400 seeds because my understanding was onion seeds don't store well so I didn't want them to go to waste. I had planned on using all the extras for scallions. Well, I didn't have to worry about extras really.

I don't think I've eaten a shallot in my life.