George, the rotting might have been prevented with sulfur. As I recall your soils lie low and stay wet for a long time in the spring. We always dust ours with sulfur.

It is normal for Elephant garlic to put up a flower stalk this time of the year. We always just pop the top of it off to force the bulbs to get bigger. Then we wait for the plant to die back before digging. And yes, if you have enough to eat, they can be eaten as soon as you dig them.

We let the top sets on Egyptan onions get big enough and then replant them in the fall(Sometimes in a good year they will set two sets of topsets, the second above the first. We usually pop the second one off so the first set will get bigger.) We usually eat these onions as early green onions about the time we are setting out our annual onions in March. I use them in cooking as I do all onions because raw onions give me a headache. They're a little tougher and stronger than annual onions.

In addition to planting the topsets of the walking onions to get spring onions, we always leave a few of the older plants in the ground, never digging all of them, but that's just because we're lazy. The upside is that in a mild winter you can dig onions all winter.

Larry on garlic the flower stalk is called a scape. Many of my varieties have been sending the up over the last week. I usually remove about half and leave half. Most of your hard necks sends up a scape also. You can remove the scape and either chop it up and eat it or cook with it. I sometimes chop them up and mix them in a salad. Many say removing them makes for larger bulbs. Here in my garden I have never seen a correlation. The biggest bulbs I had 2 years ago had scapes and the ones next to them that I removed the scapes from were a little smaller but still large. Some feel if your garlic is well fed then it doesn't make any difference. If for some reason they unable to uptake the needed nutrients then the extra load could make the bulbs smaller. I personally feel the root system determines whether they can uptake enough nutrients to make a large bulb and the scape at the same time. Jay

Larry,
Another observation on the Egyptian Walking onions: I find the little top set onions to be pretty good keepers. Though, I haven't tried keeping them, in storage, till spring. Sometimes, when a recipe calls for an onion, I simply pull and adult Egyptian Onion and dice up the whole thing, stem and all (except any part which seems woody). This seems to work quite well.

George

Larry,

As Dorothy aaid, dusting the potatoes with sulfur might have helped, but if the soil stays too wet too long, the rot is almost inevitable.

We had very heavy rainfall in January, February and March, including before, during and after potato planting time.

I planted my potatoes and onions in two separate areas.

The main crop went into the highest part of the big garden at the end that has a sandier soil. It didn't help. I lost almost all the potatoes planted in four 15' long rows there. I think four plants survived. Some sprouted, grew and died after the second 3" rainfall in two weeks, while others never emerged above the 2" of soil that covered them at that point. They all were chitted and were dusted with sulfur, but it didn't help. The 6" of rain in a fairly compact time frame got them. That same rain got about 75% of the onions in the raised bed directly adjacent to the potatoes. They rotted as well, and the ones that didn't rot have been bolting at the rate of 1 or 2 or 3 a week, so we've been using them as they bolt. They haven't made a very good size.

The other potatoes and onions were planted in raised beds in the Peter Rabbit Garden which is on the highest point of our property up by the house and garage. This was intended as a back-up crop in case the rain kept falling and the ones in the big garden failed. I sure am glad I planted the back-up crop!

The potatoes were planted 8" deep in a bed raised 16" above the grade level, and the onions were planted in a bed that is 6 or 8" above grade level. Both have performed superbly in that area and will give us a fabulous harvest. Based on this year's results, in the future I will plant potatoes and onions only in the Peter Rabbit Garden. In fact, I'm thinking of adding three more raised beds there so I can grow lots of potatoes and onions well above grade and never have to worry again about heavy rainfall at the wrong time wiping them out in the big garden.

My land doesn't stay as wet as yours most years, and about half my regular garden is raised beds. This year I added 2 more raised beds to the lowest-lying area where everything has grown at grade level pretty well in all but the wettest years (2004 and 2007) and I hope to add two more raised beds to that area next year. I guess I am preparing for the inevitable extremely wet year we'll have one of these years. In January thru March, I thought maybe this would be a very wet year, but as soon as I started building those two new raised beds, the rain stopped. Now I'm wishing it would rain.

As wet as your ground stays, you may have to build raised beds, even if they are just informal mounds of soil above ground with no board or stone edgings, in order to grow potatoes.

Most years, onions don't rot as easily as potatoes do, at least not here, unless it rains constantly in the first 4 to 8 weeks after you plant them, which is what happened to mine here.

Maybe 2013 will be a less rainy spring for you and you'll have a better potato crop. Or, you can plant them for a fall crop. My fall crop is usually smaller than my spring crop in the years when I plant taters for fall, but they're still tasty.

Dawn

Larry, I knew I was responding to your post, but saw George's name, so wrote it. Then was surprised this morn when I saw it. Sorry.

This year I tried dusting seed potatoes with sulfur, have good results. Almost all seeds potatoes produced shoots. Secondly I noticed last week while digging potatoes is that sulfur treated seeds potatoes are still intact, not completely rotted! We have decent harvest at least 2-3 of 2-3" tubers per plant. I tossed tiny babies of less than 1/2" back to soil to get some fall potatoes -Chandra

Thanks to all of you.

Dorothy, its an honor to be called George, and I have been called much worse.

Chandra, thanks for the remark about the sulfur. I went out and checked all the vines I dug and did not fine any of the seed potato. This is the third time I have tried growing potatoes and at least once I have used what was labeled "Dusting Sulfur". I am not sure that is the proper type of sulfur, but in the past I always found some of the seed potatoes under the vines.

Dawn, the soil was very wet early in the year and the spot I planted in was where I had my fall Cole crops. That area is where I tried "till and freeze" treatment for rootknot nematodes, but there was not enough cold weather to really do much. Plus tilling the soil when it was too wet made it pack like crazy.

Jay, thanks for the info on the garlic, I feel I have a better understanding now.

Larry

I have a question on the walking onions and potato onions. With our hot summers, should I pull and store them, replanting them in the fall?
Somebody gave me starts this winter and I've never had them before.
I also just got some L'litoi onions. I'm thinking that, even though these are practically native to AZ, they'd be better off if I stored them and planted in the fall. I'm just worried about them going bad in our hot house, what's the best way to store these little onions? I'm trying to store a big bulb of garlic that a person from Tucson sent me as well. He's grown it for many, many years and got it from somebody in Mexico. I'd hate if I lost it over the summer.

Tracy,

I believe Egyptian Walking onions are just short of indestructible. I've weeded them out of areas in the garden, thrown them in pathways, walked on them and let them cook in our hottest summer sun, and yet at least some of them will still sprout and grow as soon as they are left in peace. I doubt you have to do anything to protect them.
Potato onions appear to be a different case. I've had them cook in the soil, here in Tahlequah. Some still survive, when left in the soil. But too many spoil. So, I dig them and store them indoors. I've been growing them now for three or four summers, and I'm still not convinced that they are practical here. Keep in mind that onions are not at all my strong point. I plant regular Spanish type onions every year, and they only do so so.
The garlic will most likely be fine. You could leave it in the ground and split it up to plant in the fall. Or you can dig it and store it on your kitchen counter.
I don't know anything about L'titoi onions. So hopefully someone else can chime in here.

George
Tahlequah, OK

A friend brought me some walking onions a few years ago and I put them in one corner of my garden. I guess when I was separating them I dropped one in the grass. It was stronger than the grass and was close enough to something else that the lawn mower missed it. By this year it was three clumps and one of them was huge. My neighbor dug up the two smaller ones and I plan to move the other one. I let the chickens into the garden in Fall and Winter and they ate the others down to the ground. In the Spring they came back up and I moved them to a better spot. This year I will need to put a temporary fence up for the chickens because I will have things that I don't want them to dig in, but it doesn't seem to hurt the onions at all. I have never used the onion bulb, but I sometimes use the blades of the plant. I remember doing that last year during Thanksgiving when my daughter needed green onions for something, and I didn't have any.

Chickens amaze me. If I leave turnips in the ground, they will eat every tiny bit of green that grows, but they won't touch a turnip. They will stand on the ground and remove every pepper leaf they can reach, and even climb on something if they can to reach higher into the plant. Mine love the leaves of broccoli and Dawn says hers won't eat them. Mine will fight for a left over piece of cornbread.

My potatoes are not going to be good. I dug a few up and even down deep the tree roots had come up and sapped the moisture. Maybe the 2nd batch will be a little better.