Growing Egyptian walking onions.

in #homesteading5 years ago

I had never heard of Egyptian walking onions before a few years ago. I was doing a tour of a community farm, and asked about these crazy little plants that I saw growing. They looked like large green onions with tiny onion bulbs on the tops.
The lady said they were Egyptian walking onions, and just grabbed a couple of handfuls of the tops and handed them to me and said "They were not a big hit with the people in the community, we probably won't grow them again, so take some and see if you like them".
I took them back to my house and forgot about them.

A year later I found a jar of these little desiccated bulbs, and thought they were done for, but I dumped them in a little hole I made in the garden, threw some water on it, and forgot about it.
A few weeks later they were coming up. I couldn't believe it. I was 99% positive that they had been dead, just trash I had thrown in a hole, and as an afterthought almost. They grew well for a few years, without me watering them, they were just some anomaly that was in my garden.
One day I was making some pico and needed some more onion and remembered these things in my garden that I had never tried. I cut a couple pieces of the tops to taste. Very strong onion taste.. I started using it every once in a while, but still didn't give it much thought.

A couple years later we found some property that we thought was great for a homestead for the desert southwest, (we had been dreaming about starting a homestead for years), so we sold our house in town, bought the property, moved and started our homestead. I brought some Egyptian walking onion bulbs with us, by accident really. I had a jar of desiccated bulbs packed in our stuff that I had forgotten about. A repeat of the last time.

We planted them when we got set up with a garden, and were astounded at the bounty. They are planted everywhere now. They take almost no water and give so much.

I will never plant regular onions again. They are prolific in even the worst conditions. Maybe that's where they thrive?
The top bulbs can be used for sauces and soups, the stalks and bulbs are like green onions. The longer you let them grow the bigger and better they get.

These are two years old.
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Last year was a drought in the southwest. We didn't have any real rain from January till October. They still produced.

This year we had a good start, but no rain for a couple months. We water the rest of the garden, but not the walking onions.

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All these onions are from one little tiny bulb planted two years ago. They taste amazing.
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Hope you like the post!
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Thanks, @scottyt
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You've been visited by @minismallholding from Homesteaders Co-op.

Okay, I'm definitely won over by these now. They are seriously tough! I'm going to have to try them in my ever-so-hard-to-grow-in front garden. Thank you for sharing your experiences with them. It sounds like you were fated to grow them. ;D I've featured this post in the Homesteading - Living Naturally newsletter


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Thank you. I am blown away by how big they are without being watered. Definitely a keeper.

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