This Week It's Onion Sets

They are among the easiest veg to grow yourself, but which ones will beat supermarket onions in the taste test? Graham reveals his top of the crops

- Graham Rice

I’VE been having a debate – with myself, and with a friend who’s a better cook than I am – about whether it’s worth growing your own onions. The fact is that onions are not expensive to buy; I’ve just checked and I can buy a whole kilo for 55p.

Why bother growing them, then? With onions, it’s not as easy to compare flavour as it is with, say, the early potatoes that I discussed a few weeks ago. For many of us, it’s all a question of strong or mild, and that’s it. The trouble is, with shop-bought onions you have no idea whether what you are purchasing is mild enough to bite into raw, or strong enough to blow your head off. At least if you have grown them yourself you know in advance what you are getting.