RE: Onions - is ignorance bliss?

14 years ago

Ok, so I planted a bunch of 'non-descript' onion plants - what I would normally refer to as green onions...(Texan here).

And as they've grown - all at varying degrees of maturity - they have thus far been what I know as green onions - just a slight rounding on the bulb - much like what I buy local labeled as 'green onion'. I have been harvesting a few weekly over the past few weeks. Today, a friend wanted some so I start digging around and one has a nice size bulb on it...I pulled 3 more just for fun, feeling around first for varying sizes....this is what I came up with.....most of the ones I've harvested have been the size of the second one from the left.

From Square Foot Gardening

So my question is this....what have I grown? The flavor of what I've harvested to date has been very good, although one I pulled a couple of days ago didn't have much zing - it was pretty though...lol.

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Comments (5)

garden_croaker
14 years ago
Look like young onions to me. Let them go till the fall and the tops die down and you have....ONIONS. ;-)

I have what are called winter onions...that are perennials...come up early...can use some of the top parts as "green onions"...later they grow bulbs on top that can be planted in the fall to grow new onion plants. This is in the midwest...not sure how they'd do in Texas.
mommaquilter
14 years ago
What my mom always did in the later part of fall was to tramp the onion tops down. This stops the green part from growing, and expending all the energy of the plant. Then the bulb gets bigger and bigger until you have the size of onion you want.

She would also braid them together, and hang them for use over the winter. Some she stored in the celler, but I can't remember how she stored those - she put the potatoes into bags, perhaps she did the onions into bags too.
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mr_grow
14 years ago
All of my onions have flowered and are now dying back. I planted texas sweets and purple onions. Not sure why they are dying back so soon.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden
mr_grow
14 years ago
I just figured out what happened to my onions. We've had some really bad weather. The strong winds and rain acutally broke the stalks. Looks like small onions this year. Oh well.
gabbygardner
14 years ago
You have exactly what I have. I planted lots in this first year of SFG. I love onions and use tons of green, small and large yellow onions. I planted mine from yellow onion sets. I use the small ones in your pics for "green onion" in my recipes and salads, the small bulbed ones on the right for my stir fry and other stuff and then wait and use my large yellow onions for the rest. Awesome aren't they?? I love how versitile this plant is!!

g