Edible Allium Cepa

in #gardening7 years ago (edited)

Do you like onions? I don't - I love them.

One, because they are freaking delicious and two when I was young I used to suffer from asthma and onion helped me get over it. No, I don't smell like an onion nor ever had such a problem. I use alum for a deodorant cause it's all natural and not like the one that promises it wont bring you down and actually do. Alum yes not Allium they're different. The former is a rock mineral you could use on your armpit so you won't smell like the latter Allium no matter how much you sweat.

When I moved to the city and lived with my parents my asthma stopped. My parents let me eat everything the doctor said I'm not allowed to eat. Perhaps that way my immune system got stronger - some people say. Actually, all of those food had onions and garlic. My father cooked mostly with onions so it must have done the trick.

If you read my previous post you must be expecting another gardening quiz post - unfortunately, the Open Notes Gardening Quiz for Flowers That Have Look Alike seem pretty hard. Perhaps I've asked too many tough questions? But then .. I wanted to know who else does gardening here in Steemit.

Can you guess which antioxidant flavonoid is present on onion that helps treat asthma? Yes there is that in onion and an average size onion has 50mg. We only need 20mg so easy on the onion pal. If you happen to know which one it is - please do write down on the comment. Yes, i do, too but hey - let's share some gardening know how on onions.

So as you can see I wrote it up there what this onion's scientific name is would you share what it's common name is? Yes, just as a reply below.

Do you also happen to know what bolting is? That's what caused this onion to flower. It's normal for onions to flower since they are Biennials. Do you happen to know what that means? On their last year, they may flower. An onion sometimes flowers earlier due to stress. They call the process bolting. Bolting could also be observed on lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, kale, chard and carrots.


Do you happen to know what causes bolting on plants? This year, we experienced that so I got to behold these two pompoms like Allium Cepa flowers. One is red as you can see - that's the one from this post. No, they aren't from one plant and if you notice the one on top has a purple pollen holder.

If your onion starts bolting it's better to cut the stem that holds that flower earlier. Put them in a vase with water and they make really beautiful ball like flowers in tall vases. I prefer them uncut so the pollinators could enjoy them. Not to mention that my living room isn't huge enough - it could start smelling like casserole if I have them put on a vase in the center table. The onion's smell could attach to our clothes. We wouldn't want to smell like stinking armpits do we?


However, all of your onion plants flower due to bolting - it's better to cut them, put them in a vase as ornament outside in your garden. Why? If you don't cut those flowers caused by bolting , the tendency is for the onion plant to produce almost no bulbs or a malnourished one. You shouldn't be expecting a huge harvest then. Do the same to other vegetables that are bolting. The flowers tend to use all of the energy of the plant so it hampers it from producing bulbs.

Those bulbs - you would want to eat and replant later. It's pretty easy to grow Allium Cepa - just place them in full sun and they'd not ask for much but regular watering and weeding. They can be planted both in spring and fall. Just stick them in the soil beds in Spring close to the surface of the soil and plant them in rows - arranging the cloves 6 inches apart. In fall, you may want to cover them with plastic that has ventilation to protect them from frost. Yes, the leaves could be eaten. It's mildew that is your enemy when it comes to planting onions aside from bolting.

Anyhow, bolting or not - onion flowers are beautiful to have in the garden the pollinators love them. If you want butterflies, bees, bumble bees, hover flies and all sorts of flying insects that have proboscis to visit your garden stress your onion plant out and watch bolting to take place.

Sometimes, it's also just the soil or too much watering that causes onions and other plants to bolt. Have you ever experienced bolting in some of your vegetables? With which one and when?

I took all of these pictures with my Samsung Galaxy A3 2016 edition.



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Thank you for posting @englishtchrivy. Lovely photographs...really nice macro shots. Great topic...these alliums. Globemaster and Purple Sensation have been favorites....lovely when left to dry.

In bleujays garden cilantro and parsley like to bolt.

Here are a couple of queries for you? Are shallots in the onion family...bleujay does not remember the shallots flowering....however the shallots did very well in the garden. Are the garlic flowers to be cut off as well?

Have had good luck with onions.

Did you want to use the word 'vase' under the red Allium flower picture?

All the best. Cheers.

@bleujay thank you for giving out its common name. You are right they are indeed shallots .

Ah.. you do garden - the shallots I know in the Philippines also don't flower but to be exact this is an Allium Cepa var. Aggregatum also known as Allium Cepa var. Ascalonicum

EDIT: I don't have the ornamental alliums in my garden I would love to have a Globemaster but unfortunately I don't maybe I should get they will surely flower every year . As for the purple sensation I haven't seen one or maybe did but didn't know that it's called that.

There are many Allium Cepa varieties - I didn't think of the ornamental alliums to be confused with it when I wrote this am glad you asked :).

I only thought of the edible Allium Cepas and there's a lot of them and they also have different flowers. I want the one with the bulbs on top I think they call that a tree onion. These ones are in my small moestuin in the volkstuin - as they call it. We also had Allium fistulosum var. bulbifera a white one with white pollen holders in the back yard last year - it also bolted but I wasn't in Steemit when it bolted. That one is a hybrid of Allium Cepa and Allium Fistolusom they call it "sint-jansui ui" in Dutch

Yes, vase indeed @bleujay thank you very much!

Did you know onions are the best natural testosteron boosters ever?

Great information and beautiful pictures! I love walking through rows of these blossoms when a light breeze is on and the air smells like sweet onions. Your post took me directly to that olfactory memory. Thank you.

@jessamynorchard thank you very much!
I'm glad it gave you that effect :)

I have indeed experienced bolting, but only with my basil plant. I just kept chopping off the flowers, but it was pretty insistent on shooting them out. Still got a lot of leaves off of it over the course of the summer :)

@justtryme90 ah - I haven't with the basil I also have no success in growing one

Is where you live very warm? Basil doesn't seem to like it when things get really hot.

@justtryme90 no, in fact very cold now - just snowed and normally wet - I live in the country where the 1st ever Steemfest was held. I grow them indoor in a pot. Perhaps I should grow them in my vegetable garden - I'm getting a new one - bigger this year and maybe I could try out there. In the pot, they die one by one. Leaves with and the stems turn brown first from the bottom. The longest they lasted was 2 months and I'd buy again, re-pot them in a bigger pot after 2 weeks and have the same result. Like insanity - I tried propagating by cuttings but the same thing happens maybe am doing something so wrong.

I love alliums, I have some drawings somewhere ( I may have posted them) of alliums .
The asthma thing is of interest to me, I will look into that more- thank you!

@opheliafu this ones are the edible ones not the ornamental
maybe I should change my post title. @bleujay also thought of ornamental Alliums - this one is that of an onion - to be exact the Allium Cepa var Aggregatum .
I just used Allium Cepa because I want to discuss more of the onion flowers plus the taxonomy aggregatum applies only to the ones that is red - the one with the purple pollen holder has another taxonomy but I can't remember so I just used their general Scientific names - the Allium Cepa.
There are 275 Allium Cepas recorded but I only know 4 of them at least experienced 4 of them - except for their names are all different and I don't know that and I'd rather not write if I don't know. :)

I have drawings of ornamental and edible, we grow both in our garden. Mainly chives, onions and leeks- though I fancy growing garlic this year. We have smaller ornamental ones, Purple Sensation and drumsticks but I would like to plant some Globemasters next year.

@opheliafu I see .
I don't have the ornamental ones and here there's so many hybrids - both on edible and ornamentals I don't know their names - but everything has a tag so we just rely on that. You know more names than i do

wonderful post ... good work ... up and resteemed***

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