Space-saving, decorative and unusual onion family members
For those of you who don’t want spring or winter-planted onions or leeks, there are many unusual alliums out there to choose from. Most are decorative, even perennial. I’ve grown all of these in containers successfully.
Chives and garlic chives
These unfussy and lovely plants are everywhere in my garden. It’s a perfect foil for other plants, and its globular flowers are lovely in themselves (and edible). It grows easily from seed, but it’s probably easier to buy a small pot and divide it yourself. I get two crops a year – one of fresh new growth in May and another in August, but discard any old flower stems (they’re tough). They don’t dry, so chop and pack them into ice cube trays or small boxes to freeze, then store them loosely in a freezer bag to use throughout winter.
Lilia – an onion of many facets
An onion with many uses, that’s the Italian variety Lilia. Find it marketed as a spring/bunching/maincrop variety with a pungent flavour. Its hollow green leaves and torpedo-shaped purple/red onions can be harvested in summer as spring onions or as late as November as a maincrop. Try it as a perennial bunching onion, only harvesting part of the plant.
Sow from late winter to summer at three-weekly intervals, or for an early spring crop, sow seeds in autumn and overwinter. Sow thinly 6mm deep in drills 15cm apart. No thinning is required. Harvesting can usually start 6-8 weeks after sowing for use as spring onions.
Welsh bunching onion Ciboule Red
This perennial onion is winter hardy. A heritage variety, it forms dense clumps of slender hollow stems- use them as a substitute for chives. The slender, elongated bulbs are similar to spring onions with a strong flavour. You can direct sow, but I started mine off indoors in modules.
Shallot Griselle
This is an autumn planting variety and should be ready by July at the latest. It is extremely pungent unless I was simply unlucky.
Monster Shimonita onions
This Japanese spring onion, or Shimonita onion, is named after the town of its origin. It’s a bunching onion, a single stalk variety, with fat white root ends and a sweet flavour. They’re easy to grow and hard as nails. I’ve grown it as a normal spring onion (ready after 60 days), but leave them to thicken and develop beefy stems – traditionally sown in autumn and not picked until the next autumn.
You get two crops – use the thinning as you would spring onions for salads and stir-fries in summer. As they get bigger, the flavour strengthens, ideal for casseroles and soups – and they take up far less room than leeks.
For good choices of unusual or heritage onion seeds or sets, visit www.realseeds.co.uk or www.plant-world-seeds.com.
