So Kroger has these fantastic no tear onions. I saw them like 4 years ago and talked to the manager about getting more in with no luck. Well they finally have them in again, so uli bought a bag. I want to grow them since they don’t regularly have them. Have any of you done this? I see various how to guides, but don’t fully trust them.
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I don’t have experience with your specific onion, but I have taken half heels (the basal root end) of yellow onions, and after chopping the upper part to use in the kitchen, resprouted the two halfs and then grew them in my garden. This was before I understood what “day length” meant when referenced in onion growing, and in the process discovered that the vast majority of bulbing (non-sweet) onions need the longer days of higher latitude growing regions in order to trigger the bulbing process. Good luck with your endeavor!
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One possibility…Plant the bulbs that you have purchased. They should flower and produce seed late summer. Since you are in houston plant the seed this fall, and set the plants out when appropriate. Maybe they’ll reproduce what you are after.
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I’m concerned they won’t be true to type of I grow from seeds. Might try with a couple of them though.
This sounds promising. Worth a shot. Worse comes to worse I’m no worse off.
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They probably won’t be. Chances are high that they are a hybrid variety. That said, since you have them, replanting the bottom, letting seed and replanting the seeds won’t cost you anything.
What are they called?
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These are them. Highly recommend! This is the sweetest onion I have ever had and their tear Happy Eyes is no gimmick.
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Does the bag specify what state they were grown in? Maybe the produce manager could check the container they were shipped in previously. The latitude of that state would give you a better idea of whether they are long day, intermediate or short day onions.
I agree that many onions grown commercially these days are F1 hybrids and will not grow true from seed, but it is a rather enjoyable process anyways. I’ve collected seeds from green onions before. I like to grow out the stubs that are leftover from store bought green onions, which do not bulb, but which can grow (and overwinter) for many years.
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No luck on finding a where. Since it’s Kroger brand I cannot track it by company.
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I don’t know that any of these are the ones I bought though, so knowing how those particular ones were grown may not actually help me. It’s not a huge amount of effort or space to try them out anyways.
Looking more closely at the bag for the onions I noticed this:
Most of the sweet onions that I have experience with are short day onions, which means that they are grown in the areas nearer to the equator. Houston would fall into the “short day” latitude end of things, so you might be in luck with having a suitable day length to trigger the bulbing process.
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Here’s hoping. Nothing to lose by trying. I’m just deciding what I’m going to do with the rest since I didn’t have any onion dishes planned
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even if it’s not true to type seed, I’m pretty sure it will still be
- an onion
- somewhat sweet
so if it was me I’d go after the seed, planting at least a handful in a lil patch.
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@rispa, onion seed does not have a long shelf life as far as maintaining a high germination rate, so I would suggest to go whole hog and plant any of the seed that you are able to get from the plants.
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Good to know. Let’s see what happens. I’ll be planting two like this and the rest I’ll try growing them from the bottom
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I mean replanting the onion ends, in a patch. i would do it for the seed then plant that all in starts for the following spring!
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Oh, I thought the bulbs would die after going to seed. Good to know that they can be cut up and used after.
I believe that what @resonanteye is suggesting is roughly the same as the method I used in the past, which is to use roughly 3/4 to 5/6 of the onion, then just replant that bottom root portion, either whole or bisected, and allow that to regrow and then produce seed that you can collect and then grow out.
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