Egyptian Walking Onions

[jal_ut]

Onions seem to be a favorite thing to grow, but not everyone has good success with it from what I am hearing. I have been growing Egyptian Walking Onions for years. Sometimes called Forever Onions. These are a perennial onion. What I do is plant some to be the mother clump, then when the bulbils come on I separate them and plant those. Soon I get very nice scallions. These onions do not bulb. Here are some pics.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/bulbil_1.jpg[/img]
Bulbils

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/onion_eg_1.jpg[/img]
The bulbils grow

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/onion_eg_2.jpg[/img]
Dug some up. They don't pull easily because of the extensive root system.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/onions_eg_4.jpg[/img]
Cleaned up. I plant the bulbils about three inches deep, then I get a nice white portion on the scallions.

[img]https://donce.lofthouse.com/jamaica/onions_egyp.jpg[/img]
This is my mother clumps. They were just starting to get the bulbils on in this picture.

If you like onions and are having trouble with bulbing onions, you may find these will fill a void. You can't get big onion rings from them, but you can get lots of great onion flavor.

[Ozark Lady]

Yours look so neat and tidy.

I planted some, and let them, do their own thing for a couple years. It is now time to get these organized, tidied, and start some new clumps.
[img]https://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww281/Ozark_Lady/100_2666_phixr.jpg[/img]

I read an article on them, and the gentleman, lifted all of his Egyptian Onions in July, then he dried them, and replanted them in the fall. Along with starting some new ones.

Has anyone tried this? I planted fresh ones, and got this clump.
When I picked bulbils to mail and forgot them in the garden, they grew in a cup without water or soil, just from the dew. I took them inside, and used the greens in cooking. I didn't know you could dry them.

If I can lift and dry them and then replant them, that would make taming this mess alot easier.

[jal_ut]

I will pick all the bulbils soon and put them in a cardboard box in the shed to dry. They can then be replanted whenever I wish. Also they are not "walking" if I do this. I have never tried to dry the older ones. If a clump needs to come out it is compost. I only use the young tender scallions. I guess the older ones still smell and taste like onions, but I find them to be tough.

[Ozark Lady]

I tried some cuttings of the older ones, and the bulbils. They are strong! I may do some experiments, like in salsa, just put some of the green ones in the blender, for big onion flavor, when I have some tomatoes ripe.

But the green sprouts of the bulbils are good eating. Not strong, not tough.

[garden5]

If the bulbils are left to grow, will they, too, turn into Egyption onions?

[Ozark Lady]

Yes, they get heavy, and pull the green onion over, and root wherever they land.

Mine make 3 or more bulbils, then those make offsets and take off, so when that top falls the second story onions are like 2 feet from the original, and you can end up with even 6-7 Egyptian Onion plants in each clump. And if you bump it and knock a bulbil off, they grow, I have them growing in hard pan, hard packed pathways!

The reason mine are such a mess, I only planted about 6, but, I directed the bulbils back for the first season, which each one was another plant, and soon I had this mess posted above.