One of many ways to use onions…here’s a garlic scape used as an armband to keep “wild” animals, trolls and mosquitos away…perhaps?
Category Archives: Onions
Slimax maximus
Mr. Leopard Slug (S)Limax maximus admiring my Allium cernuum “Pink Giant”
Sherpa basil pesto
Sherpa onion (Allium wallichii) and basil pesto for tonight’s dinner! Delicious!
I’ve been growing basil in my office at work since I was a student in Edinburgh in 1978, having been inspired by a fellow student the year before in Norwich… fast approaching 40 years as a basil grower then!
Allium humile
I call Allium humile (syn A. nivale) the snowy onion, and is my favourite spring flowering Allium! I saw it flowering first in the Tromsø Botanical Garden and was bowled over by this view:
It is found in the wild on slopes at high elevations (4000-4500m) in China, India; Nepal and Pakistan. Now flowering in my garden! Definitely not suffering from (low) altitude sickness ;)
Japanese Victory Onion welcomed me home from Japan
Forced Japanese Chives
One of the perennials I’m forcing indoors this winter is Allium schoenoprasum var yezomonticola, which I call Japanese Chives / japansk-gressløk. It’s much more productive than common chives, just look at the volume of salad onion I get from this pot, forced in a cool room at about 10C :)
Hablitzia and the few-flowered leeks
In December’s very mild weather there was mass germination of Hablitzia around my oldest plant next to the house. This has happened before, but none of the seedlings made it through the colder weather afterwards. Therefore, I dug them up and transplanted into pots and have had them in my cool but frost free porch ever since. They haven’t grown much, but it seems I dug up some bulbs of Allium paradoxum with them as they are growing away well, so I will be eating them in tonight’s salad!
Extending the perennial veggie season with nodding onion
Allium cernuum (Nodding onion / Prærieløk) is one of the few plants that can be harvested in winter if one can find then under the snow! An important food plant for both Native Americans and “colonists”. I planted up a bucket full of these onions in the autumn leaving it outside and brought into the living room frozen solid about 10 days ago. The plants have now started to grow and I had some for lunch :)
More after dark snow scenes
There was quite a heavy fall of snow again last night, so here’s a few more shots while it’s looking at its best (I’m at work when it’s light) before the thaw that’s on its way again…
Hungry gap sprouts
I moved 10 buckets of roots and stratifying seeds of edible perennials for sprouting and eating before the spring greens come on tap…filling the hungry gap. These have all been outside exposed to the cold since November.
