onion sets

what i need to know and discuss here...is placing onion sets, not onion chives, at the drip line of my fruit trees...along with daffodils and garlic...why would this not work?  will it work?  

any information from someone who has done this would be soooo helpful...need to get these in the ground somewhere...and im thinking this would be a perfect layout...if it would work...don't worry about getting to the tree...i know that....what i need to know is if i can plant onion sets (for full size onions) on the drip line of my fruit trees???

thanks in advance

I have only had success growing globe onions ever winter, so placement vis a vis the drip line is less important if you have wet winters. globe onions can have almost no competition for sun and resources. I grow them in degraded wood chips only for weed suppression. For that reason I am moving away from large onions and toward wilder-type onions, less of a pain. I'm experimenting with a couple bunch onions this year, but it is a way of using the under-tree area. Daffodils are not very picky. Garlic is pretty picky, grows same as globe onions in my experience. Same with shallots.


The other issue with growing over winter is if you are anticipating benefits from alliums for say cerculio suppression, you obviously don't get much if they are harvested in the spring. So I'm doing more wild-type under the trees.  

Only one way to find out . . . go for it.  What's a package of onion sets cost?  $5?  Less?  Plant a bunch of them and see how they do.  Return to this thread in 4 months and tell us how it went.

Best of luck.

I also say go for it! Part of what I love about gardening is learning what works and what not to try again, just by trying new things. It's possible you may discover something that works very well for your micro climate.

I just grabbed one more of this packs, they are cheap (1€ - 125g or so) but I had never much if any luck with them. It seems our soil is far to acid for them. I'll retry this year mixing some compost with sand in the soil to see if this works better? In any case I got red onions, which are (biological) grown seldom and expensive.