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Post by stevil on Nov 27, 2008 12:20:59 GMT -5
Just a lil question here: These decoratives onions, are they edible? I know there are reports floating around that some are not... It depends what you mean by edible. No Allium is poisonous, but in some parts of the world there are poisonous look-alikes (at the leaf stage) so rumours get around that they are poisonous. However, tiny alpine Alliums are not of particular food value as they're too small (although I like the blue flowers of Allium cyaneum and beesianum in salads...). Large ornamental onions have become very popular in recent years and these are simply often too coarse I think to be useful. |
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Post by stevil on Nov 27, 2008 12:25:07 GMT -5
As far as I know, both of those above are edible. PFAF lists thunbergii as edible, and cernuum was used by natives. They are too pretty to eat for me, at least until I build up huge quantities of them, I guess. As far as I know you can cut all Alliums down and they will grow again and just flower that little bit later, so I mostly use the leaves in spring, usually just taking every other plant so that flowering isn't noticeably impacted. Cernuum multiplies pretty quickly so under good conditions (damp soil) you can pretty quickly get a good bunch growing. |
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Post by stevil on Nov 27, 2008 12:29:08 GMT -5
Ohhhh dear, I wish for 2 more extra allium (Babington leek and Rakkyo), but now I changed my mind... if there is spare seeds of nodding allium, me to please... ? Any wild and edible sound too good to let go plus they are so attractive ! I have Rakkyo (from SSE) but it doesn't grow very strongly here and has never flowered (3 seasons). Contact me next autumn if you want a few bulbs. If anyone wants Pink Giant or other cernuums, I'm not sure how much seed I have and I've listed in SSE - contact me in January and I'll see what I can do.... |
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Post by orflo on Nov 27, 2008 13:22:20 GMT -5
I agree with you: the naming of the alliums is sometimes quite wrong, I have an allium nutans who's a very light pink-white colour, but I've seen them in a true white colour and in a close to red colour. Some strains of nutans exist , but I seldom see them named. Allium cernuum is quite edibe, I eat them in spring, when my onions have disappeared and I have these nice fresh green leaves of other allium: fistolosum and nutans are more preferred though, they have a milder taste. Allium cernuum:  By orflo, shot with DiMAGE A2 at 2008-11-27 I've heard some good things about allium ledebourianum, but I didn't grow it yet.The bulbs are eaten in oriental cuisine (China, Japan), where they are boiled, and seem to be strong flavoured. It's also endemic in parts of Siberia, but Siberian cuisine isn't well-known over here... There's a relatively new site that can localise plants that are useful in agriculture in Russia, it's an interesting map guide for all sorts of things, and this ledebourianum is indeed on it: agroatlas.ru/en/content/related/Allium_ledebourianum/map/have fun!! |
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Post by PatrickW on Nov 27, 2008 13:30:51 GMT -5
P.S. What is the multiplier onion you listed last winter? Stephen, that was the Greely Bunching Onion. A great shallot, the only thing a little strange about it was it had to be spring planted. The size of the bulbs was almost the same as commercial onions, and the taste was great! I was planning a large planting, and was going to reoffer them in the SSE. That winter they got infested with some kind of fly, and I had to throw them all away. I've never had that problem with winter storage of any allium before or since then, so I think it was something about them. Since then I've been on the lookout for another good shallot, and I haven't found one yet. I'm hoping to find a good one that can be fall planted, so I don't have the storage issue. |
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Post by hiven on Nov 27, 2008 16:14:24 GMT -5
Hiven, I'm picking some seed of this up and would be happy to forward some along to you. Telsing. Yesss please, ohhh you are my hero...just PM you  . |
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Post by hiven on Nov 27, 2008 16:24:10 GMT -5
Ohhhh dear, I wish for 2 more extra allium (Babington leek and Rakkyo), but now I changed my mind... if there is spare seeds of nodding allium, me to please... ? Any wild and edible sound too good to let go plus they are so attractive ! I have Rakkyo (from SSE) but it doesn't grow very strongly here and has never flowered (3 seasons). Contact me next autumn if you want a few bulbs. If anyone wants Pink Giant or other cernuums, I'm not sure how much seed I have and I've listed in SSE - contact me in January and I'll see what I can do.... Yes please... save me a couple of bulbs next autumn... I will surely contact you next year, you are bringing me a big smile, thank you so much !!! I have been looking for it for 3 years by now  . I am looking forward to making this special rakkyo pickle in the coming years ;D. |
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Post by stevil on Nov 28, 2008 3:37:56 GMT -5
Stephen, that was the Greely Bunching Onion. A great shallot, the only thing a little strange about it was it had to be spring planted. The size of the bulbs was almost the same as commercial onions, and the taste was great! Shallots were commonly cultivated in Norway before the bulb onion began to dominate the market and land races could be found in all parts of the country. Shallots were collected in the 1970s and a national collection was established. We (in the Norwegian Seed Savers) were given access to material from this collection a couple of years ago and a number of members now cultivate the old varieties again. However, for climatic reasons, they are always spring sown here. However, I successfully cultivate Grizelle here from autumn planting. What happens if you plant Greely in the fall? There's also a project just started here to look at the genetics of Scandinavian shallots/potato onions. It's often stated that in the east (Finland) it is mostly potato onions which were cultivated but shallots dominate in the west (Norway). However, a clear description of how a potato onion differs doesn't seem to exist... I've read that at least some Potato Onions grow underneath the ground (as potatoes do) as stated here: www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/o/onipot08.htmlApparently, when it doesn't seem that Scandinavian Potato Onions grow like this. It would be interesting to get hold of some Potato Onions and compare with what they call Potetløk here. Perhaps they are completely different things. |
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Post by PatrickW on Nov 29, 2008 6:05:59 GMT -5
I grew some potato onions for 3 seasons. I got them from Baker Creek Seeds in the US. When I got them, they were a little smallish, but still a reasonable size. In my garden they never got much larger than a large marble. What seemed to set them apart from shallots in my mind was they had a 2-year cycle. Large onions would turn into 4-6 small ones after being grown, and small ones would turn into a large one.
After giving them tender loving care for 3 years, and eating maybe 10% of them along the way, I ended up with perhaps a kilo of marble sized onions. A reader of my blog from the UK sent me an email saying he would really like to try potato onions, so I sent the lot to him. A month or so ago, a friend here gave me some Utrecht onions, apparently named after a Dutch city. They look suspiciously like the potato onions I grew before, so we'll see.
I've heard it said that potato onions are 'more prolific than tomatoes when grown in the same space', but I've never had such luck.
I'm not completely sure what you mean by potato onions growing underground like potatoes, do you just mean root divisions? This is how the shallots and potato onions I've seen reproduce, although now I have seeds from Andrey. I think it's what some people in the SSE call a nesting onion, as it forms an underground 'nest'.
Next time you send me something else, I'd be interested in trying some Grizelles as well.
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Post by stevil on Nov 29, 2008 10:28:38 GMT -5
I agree with you: the naming of the alliums is sometimes quite wrong.... I've heard some good things about allium ledebourianum, but I didn't grow it yet.The bulbs are eaten in oriental cuisine (China, Japan), where they are boiled, and seem to be strong flavoured. It's also endemic in parts of Siberia, but Siberian cuisine isn't well-known over here... There's a relatively new site that can localise plants that are useful in agriculture in Russia, it's an interesting map guide for all sorts of things, and this ledebourianum is indeed on it: agroatlas.ru/en/content/related/Allium_ledebourianum/map/have fun!! Allium ledebourianum: Yes, I’ve also heard good things about this one. I’ve tried from seed a couple of times. The first time, the plants didn’t make it through the winter. Then, I got seed from the Alpine Garden Society in 2004 and it finally flowered this summer. I hadn’t noticed that the leaves were wrong, forgetting that this species is quite closely related to the common chives, Allium schoenoprasum and has sometimes been considered as a sub-species. Anyway, what I got seems to be Allium ramosum (which I already had – ramosum looks very similar to tuberosum, but is a lot hardier). So, I’ll have to try again. Incidentally, I saw this species in the botanical gardens in Copenhagen this summer: www.hagepraten.no/gallery/pic.php?mode=large&pic_id=1110Although the plant looked a bit sick (rust), it looks right – several other Alliums in this garden and other botanical gardens I visited this summer were wrong – so even in the botanical garden seed exchanges Alliums are I think often wrongly identified…. images.mobot.org/mrsid/184/18403385_001.gifHadn’t seen the Russian link before – thanks for that. Stephen |
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Post by stevil on Nov 29, 2008 10:45:13 GMT -5
What seemed to set them apart from shallots in my mind was they had a 2-year cycle. Large onions would turn into 4-6 small ones after being grown, and small ones would turn into a large one. Well, this is actually how we cultivate shallots here. We plant a few large onions which multiply into many small onions which will be next year's seed. Then we plant a lot of small onions which multiply into fewer but larger shallots for eating. I've heard it said that potato onions are 'more prolific than tomatoes when grown in the same space', but I've never had such luck. I'm not completely sure what you mean by potato onions growing underground like potatoes, do you just mean root divisions? This is how the shallots and potato onions I've seen reproduce, although now I have seeds from Andrey. I think it's what some people in the SSE call a nesting onion, as it forms an underground 'nest'. Next time you send me something else, I'd be interested in trying some Grizelles as well. Yes, I meant that they grow and multiply underground. Perhaps it has to do with how you plant them? As far as I understand it, both shallots and what they call potato onions here are planted on the surface so that the onion sets are about half visible. How do you plant shallots/ potato onions? Grizelles: I've planted all my seed a few weeks ago and they are now frozen in the ground. If you remind me next July I'm sure I can send you some. |
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Post by PatrickW on Nov 29, 2008 13:01:04 GMT -5
Consider that my shallot/potato onion growing experience is really only the potato onions and the Greely onion. The potato onion had kind of a long stem, but the true growing part of the onion was always well underground, it's a little hard to explain this without a picture. Like I said, in my garden this never grew larger than a large marble. The Greely onion always grew full sized root divisions, about 4-6 of them each year. This is what I was told by the person who sent them, and I had an email exchange with another person offering it via the SSE and they confirmed this too. Thus, only a one year cycle. Occasionally the Greely onion would form an unusually small bulb, just by chance, and this was useful for sending someone else, because the genetics were the same as the larger bulbs and would produce normal onions the following year. I also planted the Greely onion well into the ground, but as the nest developed the ground tended to bulk-up and open a bit in the middle. I would still say however it spent most of it's growing cycle underground. Since I only had this one year in the garden, I was growing from small bulbs that were sent to me, and they were too small to do anything other than bury in the ground. If I were growing the Greely onion again, I would plant it fully underground. I planted the Utrecht onion I just got underground. When I plant the seeds from Andrey, I don't know what to expect. If I look at this Internet factsheet: www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/98-037.htm#propagationIt sort of says something in between, "Don't plant the bulbs or plants deeply and do not move soil to cover the plant base; the bulbs should grow out of the ground for easier dividing." Perhaps we are just splitting hairs, and we do plant them more or less the same after all. |
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