My shallots are a bust this year from waterlogged soil. They were growing well but quickly went kaput. Glad I still have some in storage I harvested last year to replant with this fall.

Your idea of using sets for green onions is a good one. If you can get your hands on some Egyptian onion topsets and start a patch, in a couple years you'll have yourself a near limitless supply of green onions. Keep the topsets in storage and plant some every so often for a continuous supply. They pretty much grow themselves and only require minimal maintenance (occasional thinning and replanting of topsets).

Rodney

Thanks Rodney for the reminder about the walking onions -- and I do have a source of them. The trick will be keeping the quack grass from invading the bed. (you should see my sage bush!)

I also get rollicking beds of scallions from the Egyptians, and I start leeks from seed now. They germinate fast, make nice edible onions in the fall.

Thought I'd share my plan, and some ideas I came across, in case someone some year has this same problem:

Definitely plant Egyptian onions and use the green onions.

I've made seed tapes out of Yellow Granex and WAlla walla seeds, which I will plant in early August and hope to get green onions in late fall, then sets to use early in the winter under cover for more green onions, and maybe some bulbing by early spring.

Came across this website about growing green onions indoors. Some of my main crop onions turned out very small, so might try sprouting them inside in Jan or Feb. They also say you can sprout the cut off root end of an onion -- sounds like an interesting experiment. Looks like my link didn't work -- but google growing onions indoors and it comes up.

I liked the idea of perennial onions as well and invested heavily in this idea last fall. I'm doing potato onions as my storage crop, with several varieties of Eygyptian Walking Onions from at least 3 sources, Louisiana multiplying shallots and white multiplier onions from for my green onions or scallions. I also have Dutch yellow moon shallots, Lancelot Leeks, Garic and Elephant garlic. For good measure I added 2 bunches of Dixondale short day onions. I guess that I am collecting alliums because I can't seem to quit buying them. Really looking forward to the coming years and hope my plan comes together!

I'm most interested in the potato onions from Kelly Winterton, the pic below shows a row of his extras and culls, spring planted, no telling what I'll get from them.

i also have some some of Kelly's landrace from seed, so who knows what I'll get.

Looking forward to harvest time!

I have also been cutting my green onions off at ground level and all have been regrowing greens!

Once you let some of the topsets mature on Egyptian onions, there really is no reason you can't have green onions growing just about year round, except for the very coldest months. A patch of these walking onions make SO MANY topsets. If you want a continuous supply of green onions, don't plant them all at once. Space planting out the buttons about once a month or so, so you always have new ones coming up. I haven't found that things like day length, etc., seriously affect the growth cycle of these things.

How about growing Chives.. I have them an they come In early spring same time as crocus an I use the tops just like onions.. I had lettuce salad with them today.

Most of our alliums can be grown in pots for their greens. Some folks find that real handy and keep pots going year around. About now there should be onion sets all over the place. You can easily stagger plantings for green onions. If you plant them right at the surface, many of them will give you decent sized bulbs that keep pretty well, too. The deeper you plant them the more likely they are to bolt.

maudlintiger,

If my experience with Kelly Winterton's, Green Mountain (and a few prior culls) is any indication, you will get keeper onions bigger than yellow multipliers, but they don't quite keep as well. IIRC correspondence from Kelly, he spring plants almost exclusively. Yellow multipliers also mature a bit earlier.

You and Kelly are in a very different zone from me, I got Kelly's white, gold and coral bulbs in December and planted December 5, as of today most are doing very well. I also bought the last of his extras and culls and held them to plant this spring, around the first of March, most are white and 90% of them are doing great. I think spring and fall are both good for me in 7b. I also had some from Southern Exposure, fall planted ones must have rotted with all of our fall rain! but twelve that I held til spring sprouted and are doing well. Looking forward to harvest and seeing what I get.

Also have a package of Kelly's landrace from seed in the ground and doing well.

I have some fall planted white multipliers from Florida that are doing great and we are already harvesting as green onions. Had some for supper tonight!

Wait and see for me, here in upstate SC.

There are quite a few different hardiness levels in all the onions, including the multipliers. See Heirloomonions.com. There seem to be quite a few heirloom type multipliers from across the south, with different names for them depending in part on where they come from.

Here in Minnesota I have had good luck with both fall and spring planting of my yellow mulitpliers that I got from Jungs, some years ago. I have not had good enough multiplication on Kelly's to risk any fall planted yet. For me they are not as prolific as the smaller yellows, although significantly larger. IMO they don't keep quite as well and also take a bit longer to mature.

Next fall I intend to cut back my garlics to a few faithful varieties and fall plant my yellow multipliers again, and if I get a decent enough return on the green mountains I have, I will fall plant some of those, too.

I just put out my spring onion bulbs and sets yesterday and am still waiting on plants from dixondale. I do believe I shall have more than enough for daily consumption AND planting back plus quite a surplus, since I am by myself. We are quite a bit behind you, even if we are ahead of normal this year. In the past this would be about when the frost goes out of the ground, but this year that happened well over a month ago - not just early but way early!

Dutch,

This week highs have been 70, and lows of 45, next week it's 80 and 60! Maters going in tomorrow morning!

Really hoping I don't have to buy any onions again unless I want some bulb onions from Dixondale, and since I've never been able to get nice bulbs anyway., this year will tell the tale. Also, how many times have you cut a nice bulb and put more than 1/2 back in the fridge for later, with just two of us we do that a lot so smaller bulbs may work better for us anyway.

We eat lots of green onions and hopefully will always have them with Egyptian Walkining onions and the white multipliers from Florida and Louisiana for them. We ate some of the Florida variety last night in our salad and with potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil with garlic. We use the whole onion plant, greens and all, snipped off at ground level, then let them grow back. Not sure how many times I can do that, but it works once anyway.

Not sure why the various alliums facinate me, but they do, maybe I'm an allium addict. I can't resist any new variety I run across. Right now I'm trying to find some Fleeners Topset EWO, it's a large bulbed white, sweet EWO.

I live by myself and second your wish not to put a half cut up piece of produce, an onion, a tomato, or a potato back in the fridge, quite possibly to be forgotten until too late. For that reason I like fingerling potatoes and the small multiplier onions. The fingerling potatoes cook up in about a minute in the microwave and then you can do whatever you wish with them. The yellow multipliers very often store for over a year after a very easy cure; so once you have them your can have them all year long simply out of storage. They also sprout into very nice windowsill greens. No left overs, although I will often cook up several meals all at once, the extras get frozen in meal sized servings and come out of the microwave in a jiffy and I still don't have left over remnants. I find it takes no longer to cook up 4 servings than it takes to make one, and the other three are ready in their turn in a jiffy out of the nuker.

I am not adverse to supermarket produce; way better than no produce. And I love the little Clementine and similar mandarin oranges; with all the various countries producing them, I can have them year around. Still it is better IMO to eat your own produce, good for the soul as well as the body.