I don't understand. Up north, these long day onions ought to be planted outside NOW in order to form bulbs by the end of the (short) summer. 120 DTM. What makes you think you won't be getting large onions?

I started this variety in the house last year in February 2019, placed the seedlings outdoors in May, and got a nice crop of big Spanish onions by August 2019.

This year, it is not about planting seedlings started in the house in the winter: I want to place the onion seeds directly into the soil. Never did this before with large bulbing type onions. I just have all these seeds on hand - and don't want them to go to waste, I need to do something with them, as I did not wish to seed indoors this year. Thanx.

I think the question is since there is not enough time to grow large bulbs before the days of summer get shorter, what will happen?

You can try to grow them just for green stems if you have room, no harm in trying, if they sprout they should grow. Will they try to flower and go dormant by August? I would think the onions might just stop growing mid summer.

My understanding is that May is the time you should be planing onions by seed outdoors if you want bulbs. I have a friend in Saskatchewan who does this, and gets bulbs in Aug/Sep. You could have tried planting in April. Seems to me you DO have time. FWIW, onions are moderately freeze tolerant, so if you have almost 4 months without freeze, the DTM suggests you would make out well.

Many thanks to all of you. I mean, what it comes down to, is that there's no Spanish Onion Police out there who will punish me for doing things different from the usual method. Will report back in late August!

I was curious about Spanish Onions. It seems that they are really just plain yellow onions, but if grown in a low-sulfur soil they end up somewhat sweet.

Give it a try. I would guess you would get small bulbs or scallions. Onion seed does not keep for long. I'd use it this year and hope it still germinates well. Dan, in our area at 42 degrees north latitude, we plant onion seed in February, and set out plant (hopefully pencil thick) in April. The longer days of June trigger bulbing. If plants are large by then, I get large bulbs. Smaller plants give smaller bulbs. So seeds sown now would not give me very large bulbs. Sowing seed in April might give somewhat large bulbs, but I've not tried it.

But blue-skink, if now is when you can plant, then go for it and at least get something, maybe even a surprisingly great result. By mid September the lower sun angle and shorter days around here result in much slower growth of all plants even though temps may remain warm. So our remaining frost free days only help a little. Probably true for you, too.

@naturegirl. Hey, I love scallions! Indeed, when I noticed the package of seeds just the other day, I figured what did I have to lose. I posted a question here just to see if someone could assure me I could at least get that. I was certainly not expecting large onions like I got last year from starting the seed indoors. Thanx for your comments.

@daninthedirt: Interesting what you say about the effects of a low-sulfur soil on an onion that would normally be an accumulator. When I buy "sweet Spanish" onion in the supermarket, they are never even remotely sweet. They make my eyes water, and bite my mouth. However, the one exception is the Walla Walla onion imported from the USA. :)