what is this stuff? a kind of garlic?

[rainbowgardener]

Sorry I don't have a picture right now. I have this stuff growing in raised beds, presumably from seeds I planted. The bulb end looks and smells like a mild garlic and is in cloves, but the heads are significantly smaller than the regular garlic I grow. But instead of the leaves of garlic, it sends up just one very tall, very thin, hard stem, with one or two long thin leaves coming off the stem. Then it doesn't make scapes, but some kind of round flower thing, that is like several spheres, with green bits sticking out, kind of birds nest-y looking.

[Bguar]

Might they be Egyptian (walking) onions?

[applestar]

Just a single stalk right? I have them too. I thought they were just wild garlic.

[rainbowgardener]

I did some more looking around through all kinds of allium images. Mine looks just like this thing called hair allium, which is listed as an ornamental:


https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_sKGOnigptc8/S ... allium.jpg

Since no one told me it was an ornamental, I have eaten it, both the bulb and the little bulblets that the flower turns in to.

I have no idea where it would have come from, but I had a few last year and a bunch this year.

[applestar]

Saw one in my garden -- like this? It's about 30" tall.

When dry, the top turns into a pea-sized bumpy ball -- a little bit reminiscent of sycamore balls -- of tiny topsets (if you crush the ball, it crumbles and separate into the topsets) that look almost like seeds.

[rainbowgardener]

yup, that's exactly what mine does!