Easy to Grow Perennial Walking Onion and How to Cook with Them

My project this summer is growing perennial Egyptian Walking Onions.  I have 8 that I planted.



How to cook with them:

Thanks for the vids Anne.  

Planted these for the first time last year.   I was hoping to get some of the top bulbets so I could plant them in other areas but  I planted them too late and the bulbets never formed.  I just ate the yummy greens and left the onion bulbs in the ground.  

The greens are definitely better when they are young and tender but I still stir-fried the mature ones.  Tough but tasty.  If you want them to walk quicker plant them in some friable soil in a bed type area.  

Thanks for the tip!  I had to look it up as that term is new to me.

I feel my soil is fairly "friable" soil.  DH made it from clay, decomposed leaf matter and other amendments.  I have been adding coffee ground for the last year.  I planted some where I have blue sage planted and the top of the soil is a think mat from the blooms and leaves.

Would the onions make a good border to keep out grass?

Anne, I imagine once established the Egyptians would keep out grass but I don't know from personal experience.  

Where I've had a bed of walking onions, it was my job to keep the grass out. The onions refused to take on that role for me.

I have walking onions in my back yard. They are easy to grow, and I really like them. I started out with only a single one, gotten at a college farmer's market, and let it reproduce for a few years before using them. They're kind of hot--spicy, but good!

I am very excited that my Egyptian Walking Onions have bulbils!  


Here is an article by permies member, Joseph Lofthouse:

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/egyptian-walking-onions



Highlights from the article:

They grow under the snow during the winter and are ready for harvest about 3 weeks after our winter snow cover melts. My father calls them forever onions because they continue to produce food for my family until covered with snow in the fall.  ...

Walking onions are a hardy perennial. In my climate they can be planted or harvested any time of year except when the ground is frozen. If pulled, the roots and a small piece of bulb may be replanted. They'll grow a new plant. They may be propagated by planting the bulbils that form on top of the flower stalk, or by digging and dividing the mother clump. There are a few weeks after the flower stalk forms in which the stem becomes hard and undesirable. New bulbs form beside the flower stalk producing tender bulbs later in the season.

I typically keep a perennial mother clump to generate bulbils that I harvest and store in a dry area. I then replant the bulbils every few weeks as an annual to grow successive crops of green onions for market and to feed my family.   ...

Conclusion

Egyptian walking onions are a wonderful plant in the home garden because they can provide great onion taste any time of year that the ground isn't frozen. Even though they are grown as clones, I suspect that the creation of new clones may be within the skill set of the average landrace gardener. This is part of the reason why I believe that landrace gardening is a path towards food security through common sense and traditional methods.


Here are some other tips from this thread:

https://permies.com/t/68920/Walking-onions

Eric Grenier says:  The bulbuls are meant to stay attached to the mother plant to ensure reseeding. The mother (large onion) plant will fight and win against any weed/ grass. Im going to try this next year as I will be on my third year on some of my plants

Let the bulbils get as big as they can and let them reseed or separate them and and turn 11 plants into 110 aprox next year.

let those walking onions grow up and lean down into your new bed. Work that bed with a pitch fork or broad fork and add mulch after putting a little soil on the bent over plant and keep it attached to its mother. Nature will do the rest.

Dylan Mulder says:  Here's a tip for walking onions,

If you cut the flowering stalk, or rather, the 'bulbil bearing' stalk before it can make bulbils it will sink its energy into making larger bulbs instead. Doing this, I've gotten them to the size of a large shallot.

I accidentally broke off one of the bulbils.  What would the best thing to do?  Plant the whole bulbils or break off the little buds then plant separately?



Here is a nice chart:

I just wanted to report that the bulbils that I broke off and planted is still green so I am hoping that it is growing.

I don't know anything about the guy in the video though I think he did a great job of explaining how to grow them.

The person who made the cooking video also did an excellent jog of demonstrating how to cook them and use all parts of the plant including the roots.

Just plant it - it will be fine!  These are really hardy plants and very easy to propagate!

I thought I would post an update since it has been a year since I planted them.  From the eight that I started I have 13 plants and three babies that came from the bulbils.

My husband bought some rose bushes and we needed a place to put them which meant they would need to be planted where I put the walking onions.

I took a big chance and transplanted about half of them into the vegetable garden.  It has only been a few days though they are still doing ok.

Reactivating this thread....

I pickle the scapes (flowering stalk)  just as they are starting to uncurl. The curliques look lovely as a pickled garnish on a dish and taste pretty good. I also pickle smaller slices - relish sized - of the scapes to use like relish.

This was the first year i've gotten serious about thinning. Using the whole onion after the spring growth gets going but before the scapes show up has worked out well -- the white part of the onions has been not terribly sharp or unpleasant. I'd been cautions because  maybe it was a summer plant i picked and tried to use the white part and it was terribly sharp. Might have been a different onion, though. I've had the white parts roasted/air fried as a veg with similarly cooked asparagus. Lovely.

This will be my second year with walking onions! I was happy that the original plants managed to develop bulbils which have rooted themselves rather well. I was shocked when one plant leaned over into the pathway and rooted in woodchips!

A very resilient plant. This year I plan on consuming some and finalizing a section of garden for them. I have them spread around currently which I might keep doing. Time will tell.

Thanks for bringing this thread back.

I really enjoyed seeing the onions growing in my garden.

So my onions grew happily in several spots until about 2020/2021 then pigs (feral hogs) ate them all.

I have a sack full of bulbils though I see no reason to plant them just to have pigs eat them again.

A friend gave me a bunch from her organic backyard garden. I threw them in the soil, and they grow by themselves, come back each year and "walk" around by dropping their little bulblets. We eat the leaves mainly. I've had them for about 10 years. I love them!

I’ve been growing these for years and they’re wonderful! The best thing is being able to propagate so easily and the fact that they come back year after year.

Scott, they don’t really keep grass away. Can confirm the grass will root even in when they’re in pots.

I love potting them so I can move them around the farm as I change things around year to year. The I’ve had them in all kind of light conditions but they seem to do really well anywhere. I tend to keep them in partial shade but it probably depends on where you live. I’m in Wa State where we get a lot of cloudy days, even in the summer.

I really enjoyed my walking onions for several years.  Then feral hogs happened.  They really liked them.

A lovely lady gave me a bag of walking onion bulbs last fall. I hadn't been interested in trying these as I had tried shallots and potato onions and in both cases they survived and grew but yielded only the same amount planted. But I was interested in trying these--gave a few away and planted the rest. I was disappointed that they never made any bulbils--instead they died down to the ground in June, ahead of the regular (set and seed) onions...perhaps because June was very dry and I watered them but not enough. I figured I should dig them, to replant later. Although they made no flowering tops, most of them divided so I got up to five bulbs where I'd planted each one. Unless they have some wonderful unique flavor, I'm not really interested in eating them, not when I have much bigger onions that can be peeled and used more efficiently. But for me, those onions are ready the first week in July--yes, right now, although they were a week or two early this year--and by February or March, if I have any left they're rotting. So THAT's when I want perennial onions, so I don't have to buy onions in spring.
I figure I'll give a few more away, then replant them in batches so I can see what works. And water them better if we have a drought again next year.

Our walking onions sadly got attacked by onion aphids repeatedly and pretty much died. After that, all the other alliums got attacked and killed in our perennial veggie garden (garlic grown on the other side of the house). For now, I got rid of my perennial alliums and will start from square one. Not blaming the walking onions for the aphid infestation, but too scared to try again any time soon.

We've tried everything imaginable for the aphids (from vacuuming to insecticidal soaps). Not sure what happened as the onions looked super healthy prior to the initial attack and were growing real well.

Aside from this problems, these were tough little onions. We primarily used them as scallions. They did very decent even in our clay and were very ornamental.

Anne, those hogs can really be destructive! I had no idea they love onions.

The garden at my place is very permaculturisty and I think that is what has protected my onions. They are everywhere...interspersed between my he shou wu, apple tree, horsetail reed, roses, orange tree, ragweed, blackberries, honeysuckle, plum tree, lambs quarters, dandelion, etc.

My work schedule is generally full; I'm a lazy "fair weather" gardener (when I garden at all); I don't use chemicals; and all my plants are inter-planted.

Grasshoppers, lightening bugs, geckos, dragonflies, birds, and spiders are abundant. Frogs and snails when we have a lot of rain. Sometimes, a plant will have many leaves eaten or bothered but they usually spring back.

Watering is either done by hand or with drip irrigation piggy-backed off my foundation drip (clay cracks here and affects house foundations).

When I first learned about these I enjoyed the "neato" factor, but as always wonder if it can grow in our cold climate.  I think I did see some available locally, so I'll have to give these a shot.  I'm attempting to grow some butternut, so learning they are juglone-resistant gives me something I can interplant among the butternut.

We do have an abundance of chives and are developing our collection of garlic chives.  They do well here, so if the walking onions fail, we'll be fine, if a bit disappointed.

Derek Thille wrote:When I first learned about these I enjoyed the "neato" factor, but as always wonder if it can grow in our cold climate.  I think I did see some available locally, so I'll have to give these a shot.  I'm attempting to grow some butternut, so learning they are juglone-resistant gives me something I can interplant among the butternut.

We do have an abundance of chives and are developing our collection of garlic chives.  They do well here, so if the walking onions fail, we'll be fine, if a bit disappointed.

My chives and garlic are intermixed, as well. I thought they all grew under the same conditions. Now, the foliage dies back in the winter but comes back with a vengeance (and new ones) each spring.