These onion and shallot offerings are seeds, not sets. You will enjoy a better harvest, with larger, more flavourful bulbs if you start these plants from seed. The bulbing onions we sell are long-day or day-neutral. They will not perform in the southern US where short-day onions are required. Onions are members of the lily family and have been used for thousands of years for their medicinal properties--more important than the vitamins and minerals they contain. Today, research is showing the value of the antioxidants in onions as anti-cancer agents.