Egyptian Walking Onions

 I have recently really got into growing perennials. The Egyptian Walking Onion I had grown before at our old house but I guess they never got enough sun there. Here at the new house, however, we have plenty of sun and they have done incredibly well. 

I started with buying 30 bulbils from eBay and was sent several extra. I planted them all in the space in front of my huge rosemary in one of the 8'x8' beds, taking up only a quarter of the space.

They grew great the first year and produced a ton of bulbils. This is now their second year and they have done just as well. I really haven't done anything to them and I think that is really the key to growing them. Don't baby them. They don't really need to be fertilized and I have watered them way less than my other plants because they really didn't seem to need it. 

Egyptian Walking Onions are perennial, multiplying onion. Left in the ground they will come back year after year. If you leave the bulbils on top, they will eventually fall over, touch the ground and root themselves wherever they have fallen. 

The green parts can be used as any green onion or dehydrated and saved for soups and stews. The bulbils can be collected and replanted or you can clean and chop in a food processer, dehydrate and using a coffee grinder make a very good onion powder. 

The bottom bulb parts can be used like any onion or shallot and if you leave a few they will continue to multiply for years to come. 

Growing Pineapples Successfully

 

You might think that growing pineapples would have to be harder than just putting the tops in a pot of potting soil and setting them out in the sun...but it really isn't. That is exactly what I did with 7 pineapple tops that I cut off of pineapple from the store. I cut them off, let them sit two days for the bottoms to dry, peeled off several of the bottom leave until I could see the little roots. Gently pushed just the bottom into a pot of potting soil and set them right out in the sun....and they grew.  For two years they grew before I noticed a difference in the center of one of them....it was starting to make a pineapple. 

And then the wait really begins because it takes months to make a pineapple. ...

and more months

and more months

and once you have a pineapple shape, there are more month before it ripens. You want a nice yellow color before you pick it .

And it is going to be the sweetest, most wonderful pineapple you have tasted. 

Okay, so it is pretty simple. I started them mostly in 1 gallon pots, then after the first year I moved them up to the biggest pots I could find. Most of them went into 16 inch pots but some ended up in smaller sizes and still did well. 

I have harvested two this summer and three are still making pineapples and we are in November and I just put them in the greenhouse to finish up. 

I watered them when they needed watering and I think I put in just a little granular fertilizer at the beginning of the second year. 

If you live in a sunny place like here in Georgia, I hope you will try growing your own. Enjoy!