Kitchen Garden Forum

Years ago a friend gave me a clump of onions, which look like spring onions, but if you separate them out with their individual roots and replant them they reproduce themselves into new clumps. I've been splitting them and growing new clumps ever since but don't know what their proper name is. Can anybody enlighten me please? Somebody once suggested they were called Welsh onions but I've never ever seen them for sale in garden centres and if I ever lose my current stock, I wouldn't know what to search for.

I've got those too - they're practically indestructable, so I wouldn't worry too much about losing them. My originals were given to me over 20 years ago and the man said they were Welsh onions.

Perhaps 'Onionman' will know?

If they have slightly flattened leaves, they are allium perutile (= always useful). I used to grow them, like you given to me by a fellow gardener years ago. When I moved to Wales I brought some with me and promptly lost them. I wish I still had them. They are sometimes wrongly called "Welsh" onions. Welsh onions are allium fistulosum (same as Japanese bunching onions. Try a google search on both to see the difference.
It should also tell you that "Welsh" onions are nothing to do with Wales. The word is Old English walisc, meaning "foreign". That's what the invading Saxons called the indigenous British, hence Wales and Welsh. You Saxons - anything different must be foreign (only joking )

Alan

Hi Alan,
There are two kinds of Welsh Onion and both are very easily grown from seed. The seed of White WO and Red WO are both obtainable from Kings Seed.
They were very popular plants on mail order plant sales. Over the years I must have produced many thousands of plants and I could somehow never keep up with the demand. I prefer the Red variety as it has the better flavour for me.
I no longer grow Spring Onion I use Red Welsh Onions.
They are also very good in stir-fries.
The best way to grow then is in clumps of about ten then pull the whole lot in a clump and take what you need then plant the others back into another clump.
I have two very long rows of clumps of both varieties and simply keep regenerating them and discarding anything that is too old. Although I have never actually counted them there must be about 50 clumps per row.
JB.

I have a respectable number of allium cepa perutile, built up from a purchase at Arne Herbs.
Alternatively you will find Guardsman from seed very worthwhile. I also have Egyptian tree onion whach is readily multiplied from its bulbils.
Years ago I was given an onion more like a large chives but with a flattened leaf, lost it in the move and I have never come across it again.
In the context of onions, Welsh merely means foreign such as the bunching types many of which are actually perennial but grow from seed.

I have these and have always referred to them as Scallions.

Nooooooo. Scallions is the Irish for Spring Onions.

Loud shout finished.

Humble voice appears.......Sorry Peter.x.

Hi Tigger,
The term scallion means simply any onion that is cooked in the green and is not particular to any onion. Ireland, although the term may be used there, is only one of many places where the term is used.
So really a Scallion is a term in cooking rather than growing. If you put a spring onion in a stir-fry it becomes a scallion.
The Dutch grow onion sets close together for the expressed purpose of picking them in the green for culinary purposes.
JB.

Scallion is especially used in the West Indies to refer to any green onion, including shallots. Both names possibly derive from Askalon (Ashkelon) in Israel.
In this part of Wales green shallots, which have just split, are traditionally popular. We call them slots (I think that's how to spell it - pronounced slotch). They must be popular because they are the only thing I grow which my polite neighbours will actually come to the door and ask for - other things I have to offer to them.

Alan

Hi Alan,
Your explanation of how the Welsh like just split Shallots could well be how the name Welsh Onion is derived. I cannot except fully Allan's version that they are any number of bunching onions because they have been in existence long before bunching onions were fashionable.
JB.

Japanese bunching onions and Welsh onions are both a. fistulosum but this doesn't mean that Welsh Oniions ARE japanese bunching onions, they are plainly not the same. We now have many derivatives from the jbo's, some of which are not really worth growing except from seed as they don't over-winter successfully. Guardsman is a fistulosum x cepa, rather unique, bred by Tozer at Cobham.
Allan

I have a neighbour who grows what he calls perennial onions. They looked like very healthy chives to me. Could they be Welsh onions? How would I tell the difference? I've read all the posts on this thread and am still a bit confused.
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Granny

Granny, one of the ways of telling the difference between chives and bunching onions is that chives develop a pretty little purple flower whereas my "Welsh" "bunching onions" have never developed flowers. Also the bulbs are literally stuck together as they grow and have to be teased apart.

Granny & Primrose

Not trying to add to the confusion. If your onions flower they are "Welsh"/bunching onions. Allium perutile does not flower and has to be propagated by splitting.

Allan

I have never tried to grow Japanese Bunching Onions as a perennial crop. I sow several times a year and eat them before flowering. I have no trouble overwintering. The varieties I grow/have grown include Hikari, Ishikura, White Tokyo, Kujo Green, Long White Koshigawa, Shimonita. A good, readily available one is Cipolotti da mazzo (literally Bunching Onions) from Seeds of Italy - I am pretty sure these are allium fistulosum

Alan

Thanks Primrose and Alan. So bunching onions andchives both flower? I think I'm being particularly obtuse today.
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Granny