Perpetual Food - (Welsh) Bunching Onions

When you are growing your own there are certain times of year that simply seem to rush by in a flurry of seed sowing, germination and transplanting.  This perpetual food series is something I am developing to highlight perennial food crops that can reduce the load of annual planting, just a little.

The first year I bought seed for Welsh Bunching Onions I totally missed the point.  In fact at the time I really thought I was simply buying spring onion seed.  There was nothing in the seed description that made me sit up and take notice, it was simply the only non-bulbing onion that Cornucopia seeds, based in Victoria, sold at the time.  Their description now tags them as perennial and I suspect the change is due to the fact that many like me didn't realise that if they put off harvesting that first season they would do something even more exciting than set seed.

It was only due to the fact that one of them got planted in an out of the way area of the ornamental garden that one of the green bunching onions got to show me it's true habit.  If you leave them in the ground long enough they sort of send out side shoots.  I say sort of because it actually starts within the outer layers of the original plant.  In cases where the bunch is left long enough that out layer will often split, under the pressure of the new growth, but they don't actually need to be left that long before they are separated

These can then be divided when each "stem"  has it's own roots.  These divided plants when given their own space will then each form a bunch.

The process of Division

Dig up the clump and lift it out of the hole.  

Remember to give yourself a nice big bunch of soil as you want to avoid severing roots if possible.  

Gently shake as much soil from the roots as you can to allow you to see what you are doing.  

The more soil you are able to remove the easier it is to untangle the roots from each other without breaking them. 

Swishing them in water works well but I didn't have a bucket with me today.

 Once you have cleaned away the soil you will see that each section is connected at a point on the base of the stem, just above the roots.  Use your secateurs or a knife to severe this section and create independent stems.

At this point you're ready to replant any you don't wish to cook with to start the process again.

**Pictured above is a Red Welsh Bunching Onion, they also come in green where the bottom of the stem is the standard white colour common to spring onions.**