Walking Onions

I really like the idea of walking onions. I like the idea of anything perennial, or that's easy to save seeds from - like berries, asparagus, garlic, or beans. Thus, I was moved to order some Egyptian Walking Onion sets. I planted the little sets in the ground around October/November, when I planted garlic. They came up looking a lot like any old onion. The above photo is of walking onions that I planted last fall; the photo was taken May 5th.

I'm not sure when to divide and replant the onions. These are onions that were new last year, and are big and thick and in a group this year. I do know that walking onions don't form bulbs. You eat them early in the Spring before they form topsets, or you can eat the topsets like pearl onions. You only need a little. They are supposed to be very potent. I haven't eaten any of mine yet because I wanted to save my topsets to increase my stock. I'll probably eat some next spring.

Here's an onion just forming a topset. The first thing that happens is a swelling at the end of an onion... stalk? leaf? with a thin white membrane covering it.

The membrane splits open to reveal baby onions inside. Pretty cool!

Another shot of topsets just opening up. All of these photos were taken May 5th so the onions are a good six weeks further along than this now. I'll see if I can't get a few more pics soon and post about their progress.

If anyone knows about when I should divide and replant my older onions, I'd like to hear from you. I figured I'd wait until the tops died down... but by the time they did it was COLD and the ground was frozen. They're hardy! Mine overwintered without any extra mulching, though I did lose a few. The lowest temps last winter were probably about -8F.