THE ALLIUM FAMILY ALBUM

THE ALLIUM FAMILY ALBUM
By Janet Wallace
What’s the difference between a scallion and a shallot? Is Elephant garlic really
garlic? And, what do you do with Egyptian onions?
T
he onion family, Alliums, are a confusing but
wonderful group of plants. They are easy to
grow, reproduce on their own and taste great.
For each species, almost the entire
plant is edible—from the flowerhead down to the bulb below the
soil. Most can be eaten raw, as well
as cooked.
Here’s a guide to help you
distinguish between Alliums, and
hopefully encourage you to plant
more of these in your garden.
Note that growing zones are just
rough guides. For example, Gwen
O’Reilly (author of previous article)
has overwintered all of these plants
(recommended for Zones 3–5+) in
her Zone 2B garden near Thunder
Bay, Ontario.
Elephant garlic (A. ampeloprasum var ampeloprasum)
Not actually garlic, Elephant garlic is a type of leek.
It produces bulbs that look like huge heads of garlic,
but have a milder flavour. Plant
in the spring for a fall harvest.
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Greg Wingate
Egyptian onion (A. cepa)
Also called walking onions,
Egyptian onions look like other
bunching onions until they begin
a strange form of reproduction.
Flowerheads appear, similar to
those of bolting onions, and form
bulbils. These start growing stems
while still atop the mother plant.
Eventually the Medusa-like
topgrowth becomes too heavy for
the stalks to support, and falls to
the ground where the new onions
can root.
Egyptian onions.
The onions also multiply in the
Bunching onion
ground. The small bulbs, green
(Allium fistulosum)
Also called scallions, an onion with little or no bulb, stalks, white stems and bulbils are all edible. Egyptian
long white stems and tender greens. As the name onions are perennials that are hardy to Zone 3 and
implies, the onions are grown in bunches or planted are often fall-planted.
thickly. Some growers simply plant bulb onions close
together, harvest when they’re starting to bulb, and Garlic (A. sativum)
A bulb that is easy to grow and great to eat (for both
use these instead of true bunching onions.
its culinary and medicinal attributes). It is valued for
See also Welsh and Egyptian onions.
the pungent bulbs, though the flowering tops (scapes)
Chive (A. schoenoprasum)
of hardneck garlic are also edible.
Chives are grown for their delicately-flavoured, long,
There are two main groups of garlic. Softneck
thin, hollow leaves. The flowers are also edible. For garlic, which is usually spring planted, often has many
a gentle flavour hit and beautiful accent in salads, small cloves in a head. The garlic can be braided
pull the flowers apart and sprinkle the purple florets easily. Hardneck garlic can have larger cloves and is
over the greens. Garlic chives (A. tuberosum) look and usually fall planted. Each clove grows into a head of
taste similar to standard chives, except that that leaves garlic.
are flat, rather than hollow, and the flowers are
Green garlic refers to young spring garlic, which
usually white. Chives are perennials (hardy to Zone looks similar to bunching onions. Both the small bulb
3) that will multiply; however, garlic chives are more and stalk are eaten, either cooked or raw.
difficult to grow than regular chives.
Fall 2008 –
19
purple seedheads and young leeks
at the base of the plant.
Garlic curing in a woodshed.
Janet Wallace
Scallion. See ‘bunching onions’.
20 – Fall 2008
they keep producing greens late
in the fall. They are perennial and
are hardy in Zones 3+. Each year,
clumps grow larger and can be
divided for replanting, as well as
harvesting.
Janet Wallace is a lover of Alliums,
an organic gardener and the editor
of The Canadian Organic
Grower.
Scallions refers to bunching
onions.
Shallot (A. cepa)
Delicately-flavoured bulbs that
store longer than other Alliums.
One bulb produces a cluster of
shallots. They can be either spring
or fall planted, depending on the
variety and growing conditions.
Leeks: the elegant Alliums.
Welsh onions.
Karyn Wright
Leek (A. ampeloprasum var porrum)
These elegant Alliums are often
grown in trenches and hilled or
mulched, like celery, to blanch as
much of the stalk as possible. The
plants can be started by seed
indoors in late winter (e.g.
February) and planted out as soon
as the soil can be worked. Summer
leeks mature in late summer;
winter leeks can be harvested in
late fall or winter. Mulched leeks
can be dug out of the snow in midwinter or during winter thaws. If
left in the ground for a second
year, the plants produce beautiful
Potato onion
(A. cepa var aggregatum)
A perennial multiplier onion
(hardy to Zone 5) that produces
bulbs that can be as large as 5–10
cm (2–4 in.) in diameter. Each
onion planted produces anywhere
from 1–15 bulbs of various sizes.
Some growers have noticed that a
small onion will produce one large
bulb whereas a larger one will
produce many small to mediumsized bulbs.
Gwen O’Reilly
Janet Wallace
Onion (A. cepa)
Read about onions on pages
16–18.
Welsh onion
(A. fistulosum var evergreen)
A type of bunching onion that
produces greens and thick bulbous
white stems. Welsh onions are the
first crop to come up in the spring
(same time as quackgrass!), and
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