Friday 19 September 2014

Perennial Onions

I've been accumulating perennial onions from several sources. Two sorts of pearl onion for a start, one with a name, one without. The named one is Minogue, with white bulbs. This is the other, which has green bulbs.


The weeds are going mad in the background because I'm currently minus a strimmer, and haven't been well. This was passed on to me by another plotholder who had no idea what it was. It's like a small spring onion, with a bulb up to an inch or so across. The bulb has no rings, as it's fored from the base of a single  leaf.





These are everlasting onions, similar to Welsh onions except that they don't flower. I was sent a little bundle of tiny bulbs at the end of last winter, with the Minogue, and both went happily into three-inch pots. As you see, these have grown like mad. I divided them a few weeks ago, and they're splitting again already. Next year I plan to use them as spring onions, but meanwhile I want to multiply them up for a season.


Potato onions are a new aquisition, along with four varieties of topsetting onion which are just beginning to show. Shallotts are a familiar type; others are rare, and can be stronger tasting or longer lasting. Like shallotts, they flower now and then; the ideal would be to get seed and try breeding them.

The next job is to build another raised bed - this is turning into endless labour, but it's worthwhile once it's done - for the shallotts; I have a nice pile of big bulbs ready to go in.