Wild Onions
 

Just wondering if anyone has grown these? I picked up a pack of seeds at an Italian deli. They are from Italy and called Muscari o Pampascioni. There is a bit of info on them on the net, but just wondering if I could get some info from folks who might actually have grown these.

Thanks,

Alex

Our yard was full of them and try as we might, you just can't get rid of these aggressive devils. While what we call wild onion here may not be what you are talking about, remember, a plant where you don't want it is called a weed. I suppose you could eat them, but we do not, we try to eradicate them before they take over everything.

Thanks for the response..I guess I'll have to be careful where I plant them.

Alex

we have a wild onion here, its like a hot, sour skinny chive.... not worth eating IMHO. Id plant somewhere you can keep a close eye, and eradicate if its bad tasting.

Call me a glutton for punishment, but I like spreading tasty edibles.

Did your research turn up a botanical name? Probably there are tons of varieties of "wild onions." If you have any doubts at all about its invasiveness, you could try it in a container. You could also call your local ag extension and ask about weedy alliums.

The horrible invasive one around here is Nothoscordum inodorum, which does not have an oniony odor but has pretty little white flowers. It propagates itself by dropping lots and lots of little bulblets into the soil when you try to pull it out. It's also classified as a "noxious weed" by the state. I've successfully gotten rid of a small patch of it by diligently weeding every time I passed by that patch of ground for a month or two, and rooting around for as many bulblets as I could find.

A weedy one around here that does smell like onion/garlic could be Allium triquetrum, which is edible.

My community garden plot has lots of green onions or spring onions (the green parts are used), which have persisted from who knows how many previous gardeners. They come up between lavenders and in the middle of spring bulbs, and every so often I dig them up and either give them away or divide them and plant elsewhere. I pulled up a bunch that was crowding the lavender a couple weeks ago and gave them to some passers-by, who were delighted to get them. When they get rust, I cut them down. They come back with no care, so I almost always have green onions on the rare occasions when I want them. Like most bulbs, they do better if divided occasionally.

I also grow garlic chives, which have a flat leaf that has a pronounced garlic flavor and white flowers, and regular chives, which have purple flowers. The garlic chives produce a prodigious amount of seed, but after about 3 years, they are very slowly expanding, hemmed in by oregano, yarrow, and globe gilia. The regular chives are in a 2-gallon container (still haven't found the right place for them in the 3 years I've had them) and have politely and discreetly reseeded themselves here and there.

Just to show you how many there are, here's a link to read up on some of them:

Search for: [URL="http://www.pfaf.org/database/search_name.php?ALLNAMES=allium"]allium[/URL]

[URL="http://2bnthewild.com/index2.shtml"]Meadow Garlic (Allium canadense)[/URL]

~* Robin

Wow that is really interesting!! I'm not sure that what I bought is the same thing as these invasive species. The picture on the package shows a bulb and some sketchy info suggests that it is similar to hyacinths. The bulb looks like it could be a hycinth. I started the seeds but no luck with germiation yet.

Alex

Muscari o Pampascioni are the bulbs of wild grape hyacinths!

[url]http://www.cherrygal.com/lampascionimuscariheirloomseeds2009-p-9956.html[/url]

No way!

thats funny to me. Ive always been a bit annoyed by the ropy foliage and spreading of Muscari. We have knocked them out mostly at my dads (he thinks theyre messy) and have a few here.

Im much more fond of tasty spreading things than just annoying ones :?!?:
one source says common muscari are poisonous.... another says not....?

I like grape hyacinths! They were the first bulbs I planted in my garden. I don't even mind that their foliage harbors snails, or that it takes a while to die back.

Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World (a great resource for history and folklore) says that M. racemosum bulbs were eaten in Crete and Italy.