Why aren't Japanese Bunching Onions more Popular?

[digitS']

Do you like green onions for your summer salads? The onion sets you bought back in the spring are now big yellow storage onions and pretty darn hot, right? The tops of the sweet onions you grew all dropped over above the massive bulbs a month ago, leaving you the option of chopped sweet onion in your salad and that's about it, true?

Why aren't Japanese bunching onions commonly grown? They never form a bulb and even those varieties that get some size to them, stay tender to the very end of the season. I don't but some folks even establish permenant beds of bunching onions since they can over-winter and "multiply" in the spring.

Maybe I just don't know what is going on elsewhere and gardeners really are growing these onions.

Steve

 

[wifezilla]

Never heard of them, but they sound great.

 

[MuranoFarms]

I've never heard of them either, but id be willing to try them!

 

[hoodat]

According to many botanists Japanese and Welsh bunching onions are the same plants. I grow mine in permanent beds since I don't have to worry about Winter freeze.

 

[digitS']

There you go, Hoodie!

According to Wikipedia (and I seem to remember other sources ), the "Welsh" simply meant "foreign" to the English. I guess that's what they called them when these onions showed up several centuries ago. (I wonder what the Welsh think about that . . ?)

Here is some more on them from Washington State U. Here's something I didn't know about them: "This is one of the few Allium species that can cross-pollinate with the common onion. As a result, many of the commonly grown green bunching onions are Allium cepa x Allium fistulosum crosses. The non-bulbing and disease resistance characteristics of A. fistulosum are combined with the high vigor and smaller leaf blades and bases of A. cepa."

I'd say, the bunching onions have plenty of vigor and some have small leaves.

I've grown several varieties over the last 20 odd years. Four Seasons is virtually identical to the green scallions you can buy in the supermarket. And yet, they were the only ones that began "bunching" for me in the very 1st year! So, it is like, "They are reproducing before my very eyes!"

Of course, garlic and shallots do the very same thing. Bunching onions are very much like shallots but they are green onions.

The variety in the photo are Tokyo White that I've grown the last few years. They can get BIG but, strip away a couple leaves - and, they are nice and tender !

Steve

 

[PotterWatch]

I grow bunching onions but I don't know if they are same variety as what you are talking about. I wasn't planning on them being where they are permanently, but they seem to like it there and have done extremely well. I use them in everything from salad to fried rice to chicken dishes. We have always just called them scallions.

 

[seedcorn]

I have used them, my mother had used them. In Indiana, when it gets hot, they become woody. They can be used but they aren't sweet and tender as they are in spring.

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

Thanks so much. You have just solved my onion fetish. Now I need to make a new bed and buy some seeds.

P.S. Thank goodness my husband likes onions too.

 

[vfem]

We've decided to put in a new 50ft x 6ft garden area, one of the major reasons... MORE ONIONS and GARLIC!!!!

 

[digitS']

Yes, as long as we can still use public transportation and 1 or 2 people are willing to visit each month . . .

It could be that "scallions" is a culinary term and just means "green onions" of whatever variety or species. I'm fairly unsophisticated in the gourmet realm.

I'm not sure what it would take to get the bunching onions thru winter. I do have perennial herbs in the backyard. The walking onions are back amongst them now but they are useful at the same time as the chives. Honestly, I don't think they compare well - walking onions get a little tooo hot! They were absent for a half-dozen years, I really didn't miss them, and won't be tolerating their spreading much this go-around.

I'll have onions from sets but they have a fairly short season to be used fresh. And, I've stopped raiding the shallots for scallions! i mean, they don't produce all that well without me making off with them before they've matured. The bunching onions, along with the sweet onions, are just started from seed each spring and set out to grow as annuals in my garden.

Steve :rainbow-sun