Walking onions
Posted by: TammyKnown also as Egyptian walking onions, walking onions are a great everyday kitchen onion.
I got my first walking onion from a friend of my dad. I didn’t know a thing about them! I had never grown an onion in my life but I had chives and figured I had nothing to lose in giving these a try.
What makes them walk? If you look carefully at the top of these mature onions, you’ll see a paper husk and inside is the start of the next plant.
The paper will split open and reveal a growing green stem that you can eat live a green onion or you can let it grow and a bulb type growth will begin at the end of it. As the ‘bulb’ matures, the weight of it will pull the stem down to the ground. Small roots will begin to come out from each part of the bulb (it looks similar to a garlic bulb with multiple cloves-the roots protrude from each clove) and the bulb will root itself in the soil. The bulb generally ‘walks’ about a foot from the original plant. You can very gently pry the bulb apart and plant each clove where you want a future onion to develop. I do this so I can space out the onions.
You can eat the bottom of the mature onions. They don’t bulb out but remind me more of a large scallion or leek type bulb. It’s not too strong an onion flavor, either. I’ve harvested them right up until Christmas here in CT (I put a mulch layer over the top of them to keep the soil from freezing up too much). They were the first plants to put out new growth this past March. You can also eat the new green growth much like a chive or green onion but once the green stems get too thick, they become too tough.
Like I mentioned before, these are not overly strong onions. I absolutely love using them in a recipe I have for zucchini pickles. They were also good in a quick salsa I made one afternoon. The best thing really is the fact that once you get them going, you’ll have a continuous supply for the everyday kitchen needs simply by allowing a few of the bulbs to mature so you can plant them for next year’s needs. My onion braid from last year is long gone and I’m easily three months away from harvesting new red or yellow onions from my garden. The walking onions easily fill the gap and our needs.