Learned my lesson about onions...

These were my onions a month ago

And this is them last week (one month later)

I copied this from a GardenWeb forum thread
many of the onions have flowered and sort of fallen over. I've read that this is a bad thing and that they will never form mature bulbs now. I read this can be due to irregular weather patterns causing them to think they are in their second year. That would make sense with the warm dry early may, cooler wet late may and now warm dry weather again.

That poster was in Oregon but our NJ weather is doing the same. This is only one section of onions... I was growing onion sets everywhere I could (a strategy to keep away the deer). 90% of them are like this. Oh well... anyone have any good spring onion recipes?

So next year I will try and see if I can grow them under a row cover till it gets warmer... also I may actually try buying onion plants Dixondale farms instead of onion sets.  I am learning more and more why people in this area prefer growing in greenhouses or hoophouses... in minimizes the fluctuations in weather which can be pretty dramatic here.

One more note... that grocery store garlic I grew... another lesson learned... it really does have a growth retardant on it... I have real untreated garlic and they are doing really well growing as they should (ready to be harvested in another week). The grocery store garlic just was one big clove it didn't form multiple bulbs properly (I will try and take a picture of one).