grandma44
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat May 08, 2021 11:02 pm

Strange bulb on top of onions

New to gardening and first-time posting here. Last year I grow onions from starts and this year some came back as volunteers and are HUGE green tops with HUGE bulbs on the top. I think those 'top bulbs' will hold seeds eventually, right? I've been researching and can't find any pictures of these 'bulbs' on the top.

Do I just wait until they bloom? Then dry out? And THEN save the seeds from it? All descriptions and pictures show white flowers dried out and people shaking them but mine look like unopened tulip bulbs on the top!

I figure I won't get bulb onions from them which is fine because I planted onion sets to grow this year but what do I do with these 'second-year volunteers' to save their seeds? I'd like to grow them next year (or whenever I should plant them for next year). Can someone give me a nudge what to do now?

User avatar
TomatoNut95
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 2069
Joined: Sun May 26, 2019 11:11 am
Location: Texas Zone 8

The strange bulbs as you call them are not bulbs. They are flower buds. Both my bunching onions and wild onions have bloomed this year.

User avatar
Gary350
Super Green Thumb
Posts: 7419
Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Bulbs on top of greens will become 150 or more blossoms that will become seeds. Save your seeds to plant in Fall about 8 weeks before first frost. You can plant beds to save space or plant rows. In hot weather onions need lots of water. Seed spacing 5" apart works good. Be sure to plant onions in FULL sun so they get no shade from trees of houses.

Vanisle_BC
Greener Thumb
Posts: 1356
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2015 9:02 pm
Location: Port Alberni, B.C. Canada, Zone 7 (+?)

I've usually grown onions from seed, started indoors; but this year I'd screwed up & had no recently saved seed, so I bought sets. Wow! I may never start from seed again. I like the idea of helping to maintain heritage seedlines, but growing from sets has been so much simpler, quicker, higher yielding and probably even cheaper. Time for me to change tactics.



Return to “Onion Gardening Forum”