Allium All-Stars

“He who bears chives on his breathe, Is safe from being kissed to death.” Marcus Valerius Martialis in his “Epigrams”, 80 A.D.

Rather than bring tears to my eyes, all the alliums (members of the onion family, Alliaceae) in my herb and vegetable gardens bring a smile to my face. Garlic and curly chives are in full bloom, Egyptian walking onions are attempting to escape from the herb garden, second year leeks are going to seed and my ‘White Sweet Spanish’ onions are huge, sweet and juicy.

A pungent favorite of mine is garlic chives (Allium tuberosum). I grow it not only for its charming white flowers that are always useful in arrangements for our garden club’s Olde Home Day Flower Show Labor Day weekend but also for its very garlicky-flavored foliage. The bluish-green, flattish leaves are a tasty addition to stir fries, soups and other culinary dishes where a touch of garlic is nice. A former co-worker from China used to make most delicious Chinese dumplings using garlic chives as part of the stuffing.

White flowering garlic chives by dm

Garlic chives, like most alliums, is a pollinator magnet with hordes of bumblebees and others busily collecting pollen from the round, white umbels of flowers. The flowers reach about 18 inches high. The flowers are also edible but a bit tough. Use them for that finishing touch to dress up salad plates. The one bad habit that garlic chives have is to self-seed everywhere so unless you want tons of plants, deadhead plants as blossoms start to fade.

Curly chives (A. senescens var. ‘Glaucum’) is also in full bloom right now. This plant also has bluish-green foliage but it is only 6 to 8 inches high and there is a nice wave to it. The flowers are small, one-inch umbels of a pinkish mauve color. Curly chives has a strong onion flavor to the leaves and I have never found any seedlings around it. Plants grow slowly, hold their foliage well, and would be useful in perennial beds and even as a border plant.

Curly chives by dmp.

About 20 years ago, I planted seeds of ‘Evergreen Long White’ bunching onion (A. fistulosum) and I am still harvesting from the same patch. Also called scallions or green onions (although there are red bulb varieties), one could harvest the whole plant but I just cut the green stems and the plants continue to grow and multiply. If they get a bit too crowded, I will harvest whole plants. They are easily started from seed in the spring and like the garlic chives, their large flower umbels attract lots of pollinators but they self-seed very readily so as soon as the bees stop buzzing around the fairly nondescript flowers, I cut them all down. The green stems can be harvested from early spring until late fall once established.

Green onions towards end of season by dmp.

Egyptian walking onions (A. cepa var. proliferum) are rather curious plants. Strong, large diameter green shoots emerge each spring and stand tall most of the summer. Unlike most allium species that form bulbs at their base, walking onions form a cluster of small bulbs at the top of their shoots. As these topsets reach maturity by the end of summer, they become heavier and heavier and finally the stalk can no longer bear their weight and down they go. This is why they are called walking onions.

Egyptian walking onions leaving the herb garden – time to thin? photo by dmp

You can harvest the little onions at the end of the season and use them like I do in chicken pot pies – so much better than those squishy, frozen pearl onions – or in other dishes. Or, you can let them take root in place. Note they need to touch the bare mineral soil so remove any mulch from underneath them and tuck them into the soil slightly. If there are too many bulbs in the clusters, you may choose to harvest some and only leave a few to root. Or, you can separate the bulbs and plant them 2 inches deep for bigger topsets next harvest. Typically, it will take 2 years after planting for a topset to form.

Egyptian walking onion topset. Photo by dmp.

A few years ago, I did not harvest all my leeks and a couple of them overwintered and bloomed the following year. I left them as pollinator plants and when the seed heads ripened, one keeled over and I left the seed head on the ground over the winter not having enough time to finish cleaning the garden before winter. Lo and behold, leek seedlings next spring! Since then I always leave a few leeks to overwinter and a few usually do so I get no work leek seedlings that I just have to transplant with good spacing between the plants every year since. The original leek that I planted was ‘King Richard’.

Leek seed heads. Photo by dmp.

Finally, my late onions ‘White Sweet Spanish’ are remarkably large this year. This is a mild and sweet variety that stores only moderately well so I just leave them in the garden and pull as needed. They are needed quite often for everything from kebobs on the grill to warm tuna salad to lemony shrimp orzo to pepper and onion pizza so they should all be used up by the end of the month. Onions are ready to harvest when the tops fall over although you can harvest them any time you want. When I started gardening at first I purchased onion sets. These were available locally but the varieties were often limited. Then I started growing my own onions from seeds but like leeks they needed to be started in February. Now I just purchase onion plants. There is a decent selection of varieties to choose from that are suited to the northeast and it frees up the limited space under my plant lights.

Onions ‘White Sweet Spanish’. photo by dmp.

Alliums are remarkably easy and fun to grow. They are great for both culinary and ornamental purposes. Try some, you’ll like them!

Dawn P.