After looking around the web, doing many different searches, and reading the
books I could find, I still don't think I have a solid understanding of the history of
perennial onions and the best ways to grow them.
Could anyone here suggested a book (or possibly web site) that really covers perennial onions in depth, including their history, best methods of growing and propagating them, climate range, best ways to use each, and so on?
The right book would cover shallots, potato onions, scallions, clumping onions (including but not limited to I'itoi), walking onions, and anything else related to them.
Since perennial onions dropped from popularity in the 20th century, I suspect the best source would be a 19th century book, perhaps on archives.org. However, I am completely open to a modern book if someone has written one.
I've already read all of Kelly Winterton's detailed articles on potato onions; watched all of the Steven Edholm (Skillcult) videos on YouTube; read everything I could find in the permies.com forums; read websites including gardenvarietylife.com and growinginthegarden.com, plus a few scattered comments; read all of Steve Solomon's discussion of onions in
Gardening When It Counts; and read Suzanne Ashworth's profiles of several perennial onion varieties in
Seed to Seed. And I've done my own growing and experimenting with shallots, potato onions, Syboes (a type of scallion), walking onions, and I'itoi.
I'm looking for the next level of detailed information
beyond these sources, but it's difficult to find. Too much of the information on onions is aimed squarely at commercial biannual bulbing onions.
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