Bedfordshire Champion Onion
Allium cepa
Story: A heavy cropping and reliable onion that is well suited to the UK climate. A classic heritage onion, first sold by Suttons in 1869. It is medium sized, golden and relatively mild. An excellent storage onion.
Sow: Indoors January to march and outdoors February to April.
Requirements: Enriched, sandy soil, and regular watering.
Harvesting: August to September.
Growing onions for seed saving: Bulb onions will cross with other bulb onions so only let one variety go to flower if you wish to save seed. Select 5-10 of the biggest, healthiest looking onions you've grown and don't eat them! (Hard I know!). These will have the best genetic to save seed from. Allow these onions to overwinter in situ (in mild areas) or bring them inside in areas that get hard frosts. In the spring allow them to set flowers and for the seeds to form, at this point the flower heads with go brownish and papery. Cut the entire heads as the flowers start to dry but before seeds drop - this can be helped by tying a mesh bag over the seed heads to collect falling seeds. Seeds should be firm and black when ripe. Crumble the seed heads from the stalks, remove as much of the chaff as possible and allow to dry fully inside for a few days and them label, package and date. Watch a video on seed saving from onions (Allium cepa) here
How to send seed back: Please label all seed with variety, type, date and your contact, if you didn't get a chance to fill out our online data collection form, you can also send us a few lines about how it grew for you/flavour etc. Please aim to send back 2 tablespoons of dried seed or more so that we can continue to share with network members. Send to: Omved Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, N6 5JF.
Omved Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, London, N6 5JF
Please remember, if you’re an individual grower you can order up to 3 packets of seeds. If you order more than this, you will receive just three packs to begin with. This is to ensure we get plenty of data in return and to keep our stocks sustainable for years to come.*
*Community groups and Experienced Growers can order larger quantities, please email us if this is the case.
If an item is out of stock we will send a close alternative.
