I’m a little late on this, but I am looking for some of my old potato onion and seeds blum shallot stock, which I’ve lost. Many years ago now, during an especially challenging time, gophers gradually finished off the last of my stock of these two gems. I used to sell them every year on ebay, so I sent out a lot. I can probably get the same yellow potato onion again by careful shopping, but I would much rather get some of my own stock directly back, so I know I’m getting the same thing. I’m hoping that someone out there still grows them and I can buy or trade for some bulbs to get them going again.
Both of these are excellent perennial onions. I don’t really like top setting onions. They are small and hard to process. They Yellow Potato Onion and pink Blum Shallot are both bolt resistant and good growers.
The potato onions have. a long history and good reputation. They are also very good eating. I love grilling them whole. Once they are well cooked, you just squeeze them and the meat pops out out. They are also great peeled and cooked whole with roasts or in stews. Cutting them up for dicing and slicing is a bit tedious, but I use them that way a lot too.
The shallot, which I ordered originally as Seeds Blum Pink Shallot, is an even better keeper and culturally a true old school shallot. If you get shallots from the store now, they are likely not a traditional shallot. The old school shallots were a perennial multiplier onion propagated by saving bulbs to plant. They resist going to flower. Most shallots not commercially grown, are grown from seed individually, just as you would grow any onion or scallion. They bolt when replanted as individual bulbs, creating a seed head, all though they will still divide.
If anyone has either one of these and can spare a few this season or next, please contact me. I till get inquiries every year from people who want to buy potato onions and cannot find them or can’t be sure of what they are getting. There are many sources and some are outright scams. I’d like to be able to provide them again at some point. I am also still interested in doing a little breeding with perennial onions like this, both crossing them with other multipliers and with large bulbing onions.
I have quite a few blog posts on potato onions. I think this link will work… https://skillcult.com/blog/tag/potato+onions
Here is my video series on potato onions: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60FnyEY-eJBDhVK5y8Qs7XRHIFmuzeFl also embedded below.
A traditional time to plant potato onions is on or just after the winter solstice, which is past, but not by far.
