Cooking With Egyptian Walking Onions Using Greens Bulbs and Topsets

Growing Egyptian onions is not simply an agricultural project; it’s an adventure through time and history. These unique onions can bring something extra delicious to your garden and add an exquisite edge over traditional varieties.

Walking onions produce edible bulbils on long stems where flowers would typically grow, earning it the name “walking onions.” Topsets encased by little papery sacs at each stalk appear like long Medusa-esque snakes slithering by.

Greens Bulbs

Egyptian Walking Onions (Allium x proliferum) are unique perennial vegetables that bring intrigue and flavor to any garden. Instead of producing flowers, Egyptian Walking Onions produce small bulblets on their elongated stems that mature and produce roots which spread their seeds throughout your yard, like self-propagating “walking onions”.

These onions are best known for the greens they produce, which can be harvested and consumed like scallions. High in nutrition and boasting mild onion flavors, these bulbs are easy to cultivate and drought-tolerant – making them great additions to vegetable gardens.

Attractive stalks and bulbils of shallots can be used to add subtle oniony notes to soups, casseroles, salads, and other recipes – particularly eggs, potatoes, and stews – for an unexpected dimension of taste and aroma. Furthermore, these ornamental plants make great garden ornaments or colorful filler material in flower beds.

Perennial varieties of onions require much less attention from gardeners compared to annual varieties, reducing the frequency and severity of tilling, which disturbs soil structure and harms beneficial organisms, as well as synthetic fertilizers which may harm the environment – an advantage particularly appreciated in sustainable gardening where chemical input reduction should be top of mind.

Topsets

An Egyptian Walking Onion plant matures by producing a hollow green stalk at the top of its leaves that leads to clusters of onion bulbils up to one inch in size, known as “topsets.”

Topset bulbs form on the tip of their stalk and send up green shoots that become the roots for a new onion plant, eventually pulling over their old stalk and spreading across your garden – hence its nickname of Egyptian Walking Onions!

These topsets make for an excellent perennial onion source. Harvest them and enjoy as scallions or chives, cook with them like regular onions, pickle them to preserve and keep harvesting more perennials! Plus they can even be planted to generate even more perennial onions!

Some may mistake the appearance of dry outer layers as an indicator that an onion or garlic bulb has died; this is actually quite normal and serves to protect it against mold, bacteria and dehydration while dormant.

Harvesting can be straightforward: just pluck them off when they have become completely wilted and brown. Any plants that fall onto the ground may need to be picked up before they self-sow again.

Flowering

Egyptian Walking Onions, also referred to as tree or top-setting onions, are an elusive vegetable with an indelible mark on human history. These perennial alliums grow and propagate in an unconventional manner: rather than producing flowers and seeds at flowering time, their stalks bend over to release tiny bulbs called sets onto the top of them for propagation; once too heavy for these stalks to hold, these sets fall to the ground where they root themselves into new plants – hence its moniker “Walking Onion.”

First year cultivation usually yields modestly-sized green onions similar to shallots, followed by their gradual regrowth into larger bulbs and eventually producing topsets – these small new onion plants can then be planted out into your garden or container to continue expanding your Egyptian onion clumps.

Egyptian walking onions can be planted and maintained relatively easily, provided their environment meets certain specifications. Egyptian walking onions do best when exposed to full sun or partial shade in an average-to-slightly sandy soil that remains evenly moist throughout their growth period. Mulching with shredded leaves or compost helps retain soil moisture levels and protect from heat, cold, wind. While like their onion counterparts they are susceptible to diseases like onion rust and Bacterial Soft Rot, most are easily controlled.

Harvesting

Walking onions differ from other onion varieties in that they produce small bulblets at the tips of their stems. As these bulblets grow heavier they fall to the ground and root themselves into new plants; giving these unique plants their namesake name and making for an exceptional addition to any garden.

Egyptian Walking Onions are easy-care perennial plants that will return year after year in both garden beds and containers, regardless of climate conditions or USDA Zone 3. With their cold- and heat-hardiness, Egyptian Walking Onions even thrive in USDA Zone 3.

As with other Allium species, Egyptian walking onions thrive best when grown in full sun on well-draining soil and planted at either 1″ depth in rows or clusters with spacing 4-6″ apart; alternatively they should be planted when weather warms up in spring for top sets or shortly before frost has arrived in fall.

Always bear in mind that these perennial onion plants will take longer to establish than annual onion plants. During this period, they could become vulnerable to mildew or rot; to avoid these issues, be careful with overwatering and plant appropriately spaced rows; also consider using neem oil to control fungus growth. Egyptian walking onions may also experience onion thrips problems which can be addressed using insecticidal soap or organic thrips sprays.