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PunkRotten
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Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:48 pm
Location: Monterey, CA.

Who grows Egyptian Walking Onions?

Hi,

I got a few bulbils and bulbs last year. I planted all of it and pretty much everything came up. Some are producing bulbils now and I was wondering when is the best time to harvest them? On one plant in particular it has a big head of bulbils and those bulbils have a little green growth coming out of them. Do I just wait until they dry out? I also noticed a few of these plants have a visible bulb growing on the ground. What would happen if I leave it in the ground instead of harvesting?

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jal_ut
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Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

I grow the Egyptian onions. The lady who gave me the start called them "Forever Onions".
Once you have a start you have onions forever.

You can take those bulbils now and plant them, or dry them a bit and store them in a paper bag in the garage or shed for fall planting. In planting, separate them and plant 3 inches apart, fall planted they will make some very nice green onions for next season. Plant now for green onions this fall.

I have a fair sized mother clump that I keep just to harvest the bulbils from it for planting. Last fall I planted several long rows of those and I have had loads of green onions from them for sale at the market. People love them and I always sell out.

If you let a mother clump go, they will fall down after a while and the bulbils will grow where they hit the ground. Of course they have moved over by whatever height the stem was. Next season you have a much larger patch. For this reason people also call them "Walking Onions".

All parts of the plant are edible so use them anytime you need onion flavor. You can pull the plant and cut an inch off the bottom and plant that to grow and eat the rest. You can eat the bulbils. Interesting plants.

valley
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 1:25 am
Location: ranches in sierra nevada mountains California & Navada high desert

I grow them too. I like them, use them mainly for the green.



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