I am wondering about covering them. In the romcom, come spring, she removed the straw mats to reveal 2 to 4" plants growing under the mat. Then she transplanted them. I won't be transplanting.
so you want to plant seeds and expect them to survive until spring and then to start growing?
i guess you could try it and some will take but the spacing and thinning will likely need to be adjusted otherwise you won't get very good results if you are trying to get onion bulbs. if you are instead just interested in green onions then you can plant more seeds more closely spaced and then pull and thin as they develop and eat what you remove.
I planted onion seeds (Gladstone, which is a day-neutral variety) in a huge pot in late September/early October.
We had a relatively mild winter, but even with some sleet and snowy days, the sprouts did fine with little growth over the winter months, then picked up pretty much where they left off once the milder temperatures began.
I've been eating the small onion bulbs all spring and summer so far, with many having died back. A few are still showing green and one has started to flower/seed. I'll let that one do its thing and hopefully get some automatic re-seeding out of it into the same pot.
I didn't do any thinning of the onion plants early on, so the resulting bulbs aren't very big. Next time, I'll thin 'em to get bigger bulbs. (Although I like the small ones since they're just big enough to slice for a big salad or stir fry with no leftovers.)
I'd say to give it a try. You might want to add a bit of mulch once the seeds sprout if you live in a colder area that I do (SE VA). The most you'll lose is the price of the seeds if it doesn't work out.
Nyssa, who likes to experiment with over-wintering or late season crops like onions and carrots
so this would be pretty much like what natural onions would do, they flower and then drop the seeds through the later summer and into the winter/spring. some may even grow right out of the fallen over flower head itself.
ones that can get big enough to have a bit of a bulb before they die back or give up then become the larger start for the following season's bulbs. the largest will go on to flower.
for us there really is no such thing as too much onion.
I like the no waste thing too. I pull up the runts and cook up the whole thing, stems and all.
One of my issues is that small seeds have to grow to the point where the earwigs don't get them. I have caught earwigs following the stem down the hole to the seed.
So I have to plant early. Fall, after the first freeze, which kills off the earwigs for the season, would get the seeds to spout and grow to a size the earwigs would leave them alone come spring
I have no problems with large seeds like squash and cucumbers. And earwigs don't like my purslane sprouts.
I also noticed that onions, that have got away from me and overwintered, bulb up in early July.
I am now trapping earwigs with
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five traps and bait for $35. They are expensive, but they do work and are weather proof. They are catching some kind of tiny mite too.
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