Growing Water Chestnuts in Buckets

The water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) is a type of sedge that is found growing in tropical wetlands of the world.  They are simple to grow, highly productive, and nutritious.  As well as providing food for you, they yield a decent amount of straw as well as providing habitat for frogs and water insects, all in all they are an excellent permaculture vegetable.

I always wanted to grow water chestnuts, but was never able to find any to plant.  People often comment that they are cheap to buy from supermarkets so they are not worth growing, but I have never seen them for sale except in cans.  I have no idea what chemicals are used on the water chestnuts that I do buy in a can.  I do not know where they grow, how far they have traveled to reach me, how they are grown, or anything like that so growing my own water chestnuts organically seems like a sensible approach.

I have heard of a lot of different ways to grow water chestnuts, and I have heard a lot of people complain that they tried to grow them and failed miserably.  So I thought I would write a post about how I grow them, this is not necessarily the best way, but it works for me and requires very little time and effort.

Water chestnuts growing in buckets

How I grow water chestnuts

The first mistake people make is rotting the dormant water chestnut corms.  I plant the corms in a small pot or punnet and keep it reasonably damp until they sprout.  I used 10cm square pots that we had in the shed, I put the cheapest potting mix in and planted the corms so that they were not quite touching each other.  I do not make it any more damp than I would if I were germinating tomato seeds.  If you put the corms under water prior to them sprouting I believe that they will mostly rot and die.  I planted them in late winter/early spring and kept them away from frost.

I then watered like I would any seedling until they were about 5cm tall.  At this stage I put the pot in an ice cream container and filled water half way up the pot, a few days later I put water up to the top of the pot so that the soil level was at the water level.  I then left the water level there for a few weeks.  This gives the water chestnut a chance to grow roots and the leaves start to collect energy for the plant ready for the next step.

People make a few mistakes in the nest step, they make the water too deep and they do not use enough soil.  Water chestnuts grow in soil, that is where they produce their crop, so if there is not enough soil then they will produce a small crop or a crop of very small corms.  They are an emergent plant, which means that while the roots are below water, the top of the plant must be in the air otherwise they will die.  I then separate the corms and plant them in soil which had about 10cm of water on top of it.  In this way the little plants were just under the surface of the water and would grow out of the water in a few days.  You can make the water deeper, but not too deep, up to about 30cm should not harm the plants but any deeper than this and they may struggle.

In a perfect world they never experience any frost, unfortunately mine seem to see a few light frosts when they are young.  I try to make sure the frost they see is not too hard and they seem to do fine with it.  Interestingly they handled a light frost better than duck potatoes.  They even had some ice on top of the water a few times, while it is less than ideal they are hardy enough to cope with that.

The water chestnuts then grow during the warm weather and die down in autumn.  When they die down the water level is dropped and the corms are left to dry a bit in the soil.  When they have dried down a bit they are dug up and eaten or stored.  If they are ever completely dry they will die.

Water chestnuts growing in the shade of a plum tree

Where I grow water chestnuts

Ideally you would grow water chestnuts on the edge of a pond or slow flowing stream.  In a perfect world they would colonise this water edge and all you would do is go and collect them.  Many people, including myself, do not have access to a pond or stream so this method is unachievable.  

Many people who do not have access to a pond grow them in a bathtub, while this method sounds great it takes up space and you have to be able to find a free bathtub.  Finding free things where I live is almost impossible so I had to think of another way.  I have heard of people growing them in an icecream container filled with soil and submerged in a fish pond, they say they yield about 30 corms per container.  Again this sounds great but requires a fish pond which I do not have.

People often tell of growing them in styrofoam broccoli boxes that they get for free from the fruit and veg shop, out here we can not buy styrofoam boxes let alone convince a shop owner to give them away so I had to keep thinking.  

There are a lot of plastic tubs and boxes that I have seen used, but they all cost too much, I want to produce high quality food for cheap.

I found some cheap buckets for sale, buckets hold water, they look ok, they are easy to find in pretty much every town, they are large enough for one corm each, and they do not take up too much space.  If you only had a balcony this method would still work.  So I decided that buckets would be the containers I would use in which to grow water chestnuts.

I then dug up some subsoil clay, mixed it with animal manure, put it in the buckets to about 5cm from the top, and filled with water.  The soil settles a bit over the next little while so you end up with more water above the soil level.  

It is important to leave it for a few weeks because if you planted directly into this the water chestnuts would rot.  Any weed seeds germinate in the wet soil, the weeds can not survive being constantly under water so they die off reasonably quickly and pose no problems.  Over the next few weeks the water goes green, then crystal clear, then green a few times as algal blooms deal with excess nutrients.  This is good, do not worry when this happens as this is what you want.  The water seems to do this on and off throughout the entire growing season, again do not worry as this is normal.

People are often afraid of clay or subsoil, but they hold a lot of minerals.  Being underwater it makes the soil soft enough for plant roots to penetrate and renders these minerals available to the growing plants.  The only thing to watch for is that no rocks are in the mix.

Water chestnuts growing in a bucket with duckweed

Once the water has had a few weeks to work itself out I then plant the water chestnuts in the fertile mud.  They were not tall enough to reach the air yet, but that is ok.  By now they should be strong enough to grow a bit to reach out of the water.  I also put a bit of duckweed floating on the water surface.  The duckweed grows to cover the water surface and blocks light from the algae.  It also slows evaporation, cools the soil by providing shade and helps out in a bunch of other ways.  If you have access to azolla I would include that too as it fixes nitrogen from the soil and fertilises your water chestnuts.

As the water chestnuts grow to fill the bucket they send out rhizomes, I had a spare bucket of mud so broke off one of these rhizomes and planted it.  It did not take long before it grew so much that I could not tell which bucket had a corm planted and which one was from the rhizome.  From here I simply kept the water at the top of the bucket by filling it up each afternoon when watering other vegetables.

Everywhere you read and everyone you talk to will say that you must grow water chestnuts in direct sun and avoid shade at all costs.  At first this is what I did and it went well for me, but then summer came along and it got too hot.  Even though there was still water in the buckets the plants were suffering from the relentless heat.  Being in buckets made it simple to move the water chestnuts under the shade of a tree.  I moved 2 buckets at first to see if that helped, those plants started growing again while the ones in direct sun were still going poorly.  Now I grow all the water chestnuts under part shade, they seem to be growing fine there.


How I harvest water chestnuts

When the time is right the foliage of the water chestnuts starts to yellow off.  This is a signal to stop watering the buckets.  When they have dried off for a while you then dig through and collect the water chestnuts.  It is important not to let the corms freeze if you are planning on replanting them the next year as freezing will kill them.  If you plan on eating them freezing is fine.

I wrote another post here about the yield I got from a bucket of water chestnuts.


Where to find Water Chestnuts for sale in Australia

I sell water chestnuts for planting and growing on my For Sale page. As you can see above they are simple to grow and very productive.  Chinese water chestnuts are a great perennial vegetable and fit in well in a permaculture vegetable garden.

Endler's guppy

The kids have been bugging me to get fish for some time.  I have wanted to get some fish, but have nowhere to put them.  I have also thought of doing a simple aquaponics set up, but that is a different type of fish altogether and the kids would most likely not be allowed to go near this. 

Then our pet turtle died, we had him since before the kids were born.  I don't know what went wrong.  The kids and I were upset.  We miss out turtle friend.

A few days later we happened to be going to Orange for something so I decided to get some fish as a surprise for the kids.  I considered getting gold fish as they are hardy and indestructible, but they are also very messy, and they do not breed easily in a tank.  I decided to get something that would breed without much work on my part, something like a guppy. 

Some of my fish - the guppy hybrids.  You cannot see the true deep colours in the pictures

I have liked guppies since I was a child, but a few years ago I learned about a fish called an Endler's livebearer.  It is uncertain if this is a type of guppy or a different type of fish.  They are prettier, hardier, and all round better than guppies.  I wanted to get some Endler's, but it is unlikely that we would find them out here, and they can be very expensive so if I did find some I did not like my chances of actually buying any.

My fish look similar to these but mine have deeper colours
- picture by Silvana Gericke http://abilo.piranho.de/aquaseite/aqua

I looked online and found someone in Orange who was selling endlers for a good price.  Guppies in town cost about $6 or $7 each, so buying from a private seller worked out a lot cheaper and I ended up with a far larger colony to start with and I got the endler fish that I prefer to guppies.  The fish were all young, and were a mix of male and female endlers as well as endler/guppy hybrids.  They did not look overly great, mostly grey, one male had nice colours so I was happy.  I found out later that when they are stressed they lose colour pretty much immediately, when they had calmed down they looked amazing.  Kind of like a container of beautiful swimming jewels darting around.  When we got home and I put them in the fish tank the males displayed brilliant neon and metallic colours, very different from the dull fish that I picked up two hours ago.

They have had baby fish for us a few times, many of which appear to be surviving to maturity.  It is difficult to count them as the tank is large and has plants and other places for them to hide.  Unfortunately I have too many males, or not enough females, so I have separated all of the non-endler male guppies from the main breeding tank.  In this way the colony will end up as all endlers.  Every baby fish from now will be either an endler or at least 50% endler.  In a few generations if I cull hard I should have all endlers, or at least fish that look very much like endlers and carry a high percentage of ender genes.  It will take some work, especially considering how speedy these little fish are and how difficult they are to catch, but it will be worth it.

Endler/guppy hybrids - poor colouration due to stress

Endler's livebearers (Poecilia wingei) may be a subspecies of guppy, or they may be their own separate species of fish.  There is a lot of scientific debate and controversy over this.  They have been classified as their own species, it is safe to assume that this is partly for conservation purposes.  The fish that I have not culled look like the original ones from the wild, they have not had any selective breeding done in order to change them.  I think that this wild type fish is one of the most beautiful fish around.  People often try to hybridise them with guppies, I feel that this is a mistake as none of the hybrids look as amazing as the wild type fish and de-hybridising them without a lot of work is virtually impossible.

Some culls

Some more culls

 In the wild they lived in Laguna de Patos in Venezuela, they may be extinct in the wild, or they may have crossed with guppies in the wild (essentially becoming extinct in their pure form), or they may have some small remnant populations somewhere.  Many people who have recently caught wild Endler's have fish that are clearly wild guppy Endler hybrids.  Many of the recent expeditions have not turned up any Endler's, and the site they they used to reside is heavily polluted, so it is difficult to know if they still exist in the wild for sure.

The Endler's livebearer was first 'discovered' by Franklyn F Bond in 1937, these fish were then pickled, sent to a museum, filed away safely, and then forgotten about.  In 1975 Professor John Endler 'rediscovered' these amazing little fish, he sent some live fish to a friend who named them after him and introduced them into the aquarium trade.  From there they have spread across the world through aquariums.  In Australia they seem to be rare, probably due to how recently they have been introduced to the country but also because of how easily they hybridise with guppies.

They are a beautiful and lively little fish, the males have vivid metallic colours while the females are plain.  They are very similar to the fancy guppy in a lot of ways.  Many of the modern fancy guppies have some degree of Endler blood in them, and likewise many (if not all) Endler's in Australia have guppy somewhere in their heritage. 

Endler's differ from guppies in a few ways that are noticeable for the average fish keeper:

• They can be smaller than guppies; 
• They have a shorter gestation period than guppies;
• The females are not interested in eating the new born fry, whereas guppy females are notorious fry eaters;
• New born fry seem larger and more agile than newborn guppy fry;
• They do not jump out of the water, unlike guppies who are well known for being suicidal jumpers;
• Their colouring of the males is amazing and unique;
• Females have no real colour;
• They have a slightly different shape to the guppy;
• They prefer water that is more alkaline and harder than guppies;
• They prefer warmer water to the guppy, which is good for me as my tank is outside in a sheltered position and the water temp often exceeds the lethal temp for guppies;
• Males display for the females, rather than harass them;
• They behave more like a wild fish than a pet fish - if you get some endlers you will know what I mean...

I really like these little fish, they are interesting to watch.  They quickly learn that people equate to food and begin to frantically beg wneh they see you, even if they are not hungry.  They seem to be breeding well for us in conditions that are less than ideal and I can only begin to imagine how well they would do in perfectly clear water with stable temperatures and adequate lighting.  If they survive the summer I hope to have enough to be able to sell some, trade some, perhaps keep some in with the water chestnuts during the warmer seasons or even feed some to the poultry.  

Endler male, I would cull him as mine look much nicer than this one - picture by Marrabbio2

I have tried to take pictures of the Endlers and the endler/guppy hybrids but have had no luck.  They are far too speedy for me.  I tried putting some in a jar so that they could not escape the camera but they lost their colour as soon as I caught them and did not colour up again until I put them back in their tank.  Above are some of the best pictures that we took, and they have no real colour compared to the lively little fish as soon as I put them back in the tank.

I have learned a few things about expensive guppies and "pure" endlers from my little tank.  Some of the expensive guppy types are in fact hybrids with endlers, I have had a few 'Japanese neon blue' guppies and a few other noticeable types appear in my tank.  Some of the 'pure endlers' that I see for sale overseas that have been collected from the wild, are in fact hybrids.  I assume that they hybridised naturally prior to being caught by people, but the fact remains that they are not pure endlers.  Again, in my little tank, I have had a few 'peacock endlers' and some other things show up.  Some of these fish are truly beautiful and it would be simple enough to line breed them for a few generations so that I had several exotic types that breed true to type, but I have no interest in them.  The natural beauty of the wild type endlers has captivated me and I am culling hard to remove anything that is not close to a real endler.

At this stage I have no plans on sending live fish through the post, so if you would like to get them from me feel free to contact me through my for sale page but you would have to pick them up. 

Potato Onion Seeds

I wrote a little about potato onions in a previous post.  They are an edible, perennial, heirloom onion that is near extinction in Australia and I have always been rather fond of them.

Potato onions rarely flower, when they do flower they rarely produce seeds, when they do produce seeds they are rarely viable.  From what I have heard the small number of viable seeds exhibit a tremendous degree of variability and tend to grow larger, better and more vigorously than their parents. 

White potato onions, not all that large but still great

After growing potato onions for many years in a few different climates I had never seen one flower until 2013.  Interestingly enough my everlasting onions flower every year and never set seed, but they have produced seed for the first time this year.  The lady who gave me the everlasting onions has had them for over 30 years, she has never had them produce seed, so it must be the year for rare onion seed.  I plan to plant this everlasting onion seed and see what comes of it, but that is a story for another post.

My brown potato onions had been stressed badly the previous year and had not divided well.  Many even began to die off.  This year was almost as harsh as last year, it is more dry but not quite as hot.  From the surviving brown potato onions I ended up with 5 flower stalks.  From those flower stalks 3 flowered and then only produced unviable shriveled dead seed.  Out of the two remaining flowers, one produced 6 good looking seeds and the other one is still ripening but looks as though it should produce a dozen or more seeds.  This is very exciting.  Hopefully at least a few seeds will grow for me.

Potato onion seed ripening - very exciting

 While the potato onions were flowering I also had regular bulb onions, tree onions, spring onions, and everlasting onions flowering.  I do not know what these potato onions seed will produce, they may be potato onions, or they may be a cross between potato onions and one of the other onions.  I will never be able to know for sure as potato onions grown from seed are highly variable.

White potato onion - these did not flower

I plan to attempt to grow these potato onion seeds, unfortunately I have no idea what to do with them.  I do not know when to plant them, or how to treat them, and there is really no one to ask.  Potato onions flower so rarely that experienced gardeners will argue with you that if they flower then they are not true potato onions.  At this stage I plan on hedging my bets by planting half in February or March, then the other half during winter or spring.  I plan to plant them in pots to begin with so that I can protect them a bit more than I would be able to if they were in the garden.  Fingers crossed that something truly remarkable comes out of these few seeds.

I have been told by people who have potato onions flowering overseas that seed grown potato onions are more likely to flower than their parents.  I have seen some amazing breeding work and the results after just 2 or 3 generations is nothing short of remarkable.

At this stage I will not be selling any potato onion seed, mostly because I do not have many seeds.  If I ever reach a point where I have extra seeds I will certainly try to distribute them as we need more varieties of potato onions in Australia.  I do sell potato onions occasionally, as well as some other perennial vegetables on my for sale page.

Broadbeans

I am not all that fond of eating broad beans.  I think I have eaten them maybe 2 or 3 times in my life and have never particularly liked them.  I have, however, grown broad beans and saved their seeds many times.

Why grow Broad Beans (Vicia faba)

I used to grow broad beans as green manure or mulch.  As a green manure they are fantastic, they protect the soil, they prevent winter weeds from getting a start, the roots incorporate nitrogen into the soil, the tops add a lot of carbon rich organic matter, and they grow over the cooler months when little else needs the space, they are easy to chop/kill and you can plant seedlings directly into the dead patch.  As a mulch they do ok, being high in nitrogen it tends to break down a bit too fast unless you use a very thick layer, but it certainly has its uses in the vegetable garden.  The variety I am growing now, I first purchased seeds before my first child was born, he "helped" me to plant and save broad bean seeds a few times.


Then for some years I didn't plant broad beans.  I didn't really think about them at all because I don't eat them.  No great loss.

This year I decided to find the old seeds and plant them, just to see if anything would happen.  I wanted to grow a good winter green manure and remembered how good the broad beans are for this purpose.  I planted seeds which I saved about 5 years ago that had not been stored properly and am happy to say that I had an 80% germination rate.  The plants grew well, they flowered well, the bees loved them over winter when they had little else to eat, and they produced a decent crop.  I fed most of the crop to the animals as we have had no real pasture in a while, then decided to let some pods mature properly so I could save fresh seeds for next year. 

I now have a small jar of fresh seeds waiting to be planted in autumn.  This is the beauty of heirloom vegetables, you buy seeds once, then you have them forever if you like them and can be bothered saving seeds from time to time.  You can also add selective pressure for desirable traits, unlike store bought seeds which have mostly been selected for mechanical harvest.  I only save seeds from pods with the most seeds and the largest seeds, in this way I am adding selective pressure for longer pods and larger seeds.  If anyone eats broad beans these are useful traits, for someone like me who only wants green manure longer pods with more seeds make saving seed faster and easier.  Larger seeds tend to grow faster and stronger than small seeds.  Unfortunately I can not select for taste as I do not eat them, considering that no commercial seeds are selected for taste my plants certainly wont be any worse than theirs.

 

The variety I grow

The variety I am growing is called "Aquadulce".  It is an heirloom variety that is very old, no one knows the date for sure but certainly pre 1850.  Aquadulce originated in Spain from a selection of Haba de Sevilla Broad Bean.  It was illustrated in the 'Album Vilmorin' in 1871.  I don't know why but I find the history of vegetables, and where each variety came from, to be interesting.  Broad beans are one of the very few vegetables that people in Australia eat which did not originate from the Americas. 

To the best of my knowledge aquadulce is a reasonably common type of broad bean, it is hardy and productive so it is grown commercially in some places.  I mostly grow rare varieties of things, but sometimes the common varieties such as this one are great so I grow them.  My first aim is to grow things that are useful, everything else comes in second.

Aquadulce is a tall plant that grows to about 1 meter, sometimes a bit taller, sometimes a bit shorter.  It has never been inbred too much nor has it had much selective pressure put on it in the past hundred years so it has maintained a bit of genetic variability.  Some people trim the tops as they believe this enhances yield, honestly I do not know if that helps or is simply a commonly held vegetable myth which actually reduces crops.  Aquadulce broad beans grow multiple stems and are very bushy which helps to exclude light from the soil and helps reduce water loss from the soil and suppress weeds.  Some people stake them to prevent them falling over, I have never done that and after the first year or so I never had any plants fall over.  I think this is due to me saving seeds only from plants that did not fall over.

This variety grows 15cm long green pods with about 5 or 6 large yellowish/green/light brown (I am not real good at naming colours, they are nothing remarkable colour wise) flat seeds in each.  The flowers are black and white and have a nice fragrance which is difficult to describe.  They are often described as "heavy cropping" but as I have only ever grown this one variety I can not compare them to other varieties.  All I do know is that each plant does give what I consider to be an acceptable yield for a small amount of space.

This variety is known for having some tolerance to waterlogging.  While this trait is of no use to me here I am sure it is useful in other gardens.  In particularly wet years this trait should be useful.  It is also grown commercially in some places as it has tolerance to iron and manganese deficiencies.  Being tolerant to deficiencies of iron and manganese means that they grow ok if your soil lacks these, but if your soil is not lacking the plants are more robust and healthy.

Some of my Broadbean seeds

Saving Seed

Broad beans are notorious cross pollinators so if you plan on saving seeds please be careful.  They are simple to save seed from.  You let them flower and set pods, you let the pods mature and dry on the plants, then you select the best pods and remove their seeds and put them somewhere safe.  It is important to have a decent number of plants to save seed from so as to prevent problems arising from inbreeding depression.

Broadbean seeds, some dark, some light, the dark ones are higher in iron

I do plan on getting another variety to plant next autumn, I have not decided on which one as I have two in mind that each sound nice and both need more people to maintain them.  I would have to work hard to ensure the two strains do not cross and remain pure.  Having two vegetable gardens which are separate makes this a bit easier.  It also would not be out of the question to grow 2 or 3 varieties on alternate years as the seed remains viable for some time.  For someone like me who is growing broad beans as a green manure it does not matter so much which variety I grow as long as it works here.  I figure if I am going to bother growing anything, even if it is only for green manure, I may as well grow some pure strain and select for desirable traits.

Like everything else I do sell broad bean seeds on my For Sale page.

Update on Pickled eggs

We have now tasted our pickled eggs. They look oh so pretty.

Verdict:

• The don't taste pickly (yes I think I invented a word but it is the most descriptive) enough.
• The texture of the white pink is oh so very very wrong, almost gag worthy.
• The taste though is fine and the yolk is really yummy.

So far I have tried them in 2 salads.

• Just a regular salad as a side to fish, won't do this again
• In a pasta salad, this I will do again. It seems when eaten with pasta the texture of the egg just blends in and you don't notice yourself eating them. I am sure it add flavour. But it at least adds protein to a summer meal.

Potato Onions

Potato onions are extremely old perennial heirloom onions.  They are an edible onion that is undemanding to grow and reasonably productive.  For a number of reasons they are quite rare in Australia at the moment and have been close to local extinction.  Hopefully they start to gain popularity again soon.

What are potato onions

Potato onions are a type of bulb onion, they have nothing to do with potatoes whatsoever.  They are called potato onions because they multiply under the ground, kind of like how a potato will multiply under the ground if it is planted.  Potato onions taste, look, and grow like regular onions.  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the potato onion, I don't know why, I have just always liked them.

They do not often flower and these flowers rarely set viable seed, instead they reproduce by dividing the underground bulb.  If well looked after, each bulb can split into a nest of anywhere between 3 and 15 new bulbs in a season!  Apparently they were very commonly grown in the 1800's but like so many heirloom vegetables no one knows who bred them or exactly how ancient they are.  I have heard that there used to be many varieties and different colours of potato onions around, this number has unfortunately dwindled to about two varieties (one white, one brown) currently in Australia.  The brown potato onions are rare and difficult to find, but they are far more common than the white variety at the moment.  I don't understand why this is as the white ones look nice and seem to reproduce slightly faster than the brown.

Potato onions were fairly common when I was a child, at least in rural areas.  I never remember seeing any for sale anywhere back then, but everyone seemed to grow them at home.  Because the bulbs are relatively small for an onion and divide erratically producing inconsistent sized/shaped/numbers of bulbs they are not suited to mechanical harvest.  While this makes them unsuited to mechanical harvest or mass production, it is a trait that is very welcome to home gardeners, permaculturalists and people who are becoming increasingly self-sufficient. 

Being perennial and only reproducing by division means that you do not need to worry about maintaining pure lines, preventing cross pollination, growing enough to prevent inbreeding depression (a big problem in onions), rouging out undesirable plants, maintaining a seed bank (allium seed normally only lasts a year so needs to be replaced constantly), locking up land to grow out plants to produce seed, and so on.  It also means that you can easily work out how many you need to grow to always have a supply of onions as well as enough to replant the following year.


Where I got my potato onions

When I was a child everyone grew potato onions, I had thousands of them and never thought too much of it.  When I grew up and left home I left them behind and they were lost or eaten by animals or something.  After I got married and had a small vegetable plot I tried to track them down but nowhere sold them.  I asked the people who still live around where I grew up, apparently potato onions are nothing but a distant memory in those parts and the people who gave me my first ones have long since died. 

I eventually found that Diggers sold them and everywhere else was out of them.  Like a lot of other people I have had trouble with Diggers so did not want to buy from them.  For a few years I resisted the temptation to buy them and waited for another place to buy from but eventually, against my wife's sound advice, I went ahead and ordered some potato onions from Diggers.  When they arrived most of the bulbs were shriveled and dead, the few living bulbs were covered in mould.  I ended up only getting two plants to sprout.  Those two plants grew weakly throughout the year without dividing and then died.  I carefully dug one plant up to see if there was a bulb in the soil and there was nothing.  I left the other in the hope that something would sprout the following year, but nothing came of it.  Upon telling Diggers that the potato onions did not do well I was told that it must have been my fault for growing them wrong, and that the bulbs were end of season so not all were healthy and it was my fault as I should have expected that.  I have learned my lesson - I wont bother buying anything from Diggers again.

I eventually tracked down a private grower who had a handful of potato onion bulbs that he was growing and eating each year, he said that the previous season was harsh and he was not sure if they were still alive.  I appreciated his honesty and traded some things for these questionable bulbs, when they turned up many were shriveled and dead but some were still healthy and looked good.  Each of them grew well and divided the first year.  Each year after that all of the potato onions have fared very well for me except last summer when it was extremely hot and dry.  Even though last year was terrible they still did ok, they did not increase in number, they all grew small, and some did not survive, but I still have enough to grow on to build numbers up again.

How are potato onions used

The top green parts of potato onions are rather delicate and can be used instead of spring onions or chives.  They are never tough or fibrous, and generally look pretty nice.  Around here they never get overly tall, 10 to 20 cm is the tallest I have seen the tops.  If one was to grow an ornamental garden potato onions would not be out of place in the front border instead of something like mondo grass, plus they have the bonus of being edible.  They also have the added advantage of growing most of the year, but then dying back for harvest when times get too dry and hot, this makes them pretty water efficient.  Frosts do not seem to bother them in the slightest.

While the tops are eaten, the underground onion bulbs are the important crop here.  They can be used in any recipe just like regular onions.  They are smaller than many onions which means that you never have half an onion left over to work out what to do with.  They are said to store for well over 12 months, but I am pretty sure that depends on the climate and the way in which you store them.  The longer they are stored, the stronger they taste.  Being so strong a little onion often goes a long way.

How to grow potato onions

Potato onions seem to grow like pretty much any other onion, except instead of messing about with fiddly seedlings every year and keeping some to go to seed, you simply plant a small bulb.  Each bulb that you plant will grow into a nest of potato onions, the number will vary from 2 or 3 to well above 15.  In my climate they generally produce 5, but this does vary a lot for no apparent reason.

Tradition dictates that potato onions are planted on the shortest day of the year (around June 21) and harvested on the longest day (around December 21), to be honest I think this only matters in some climates.  I plant my potato onions in mid Autumn when things start to cool down and I have garden space available, I have also heard of people planting in Spring with good results.  Sometimes I do not dig them up at all and just let them grow whenever they feel the urge, or after digging them up I replant some then and there to let them do their thing when they feel the time is right.  They seem pretty adaptable to whatever I throw at them.

We normally plant potato onions about 10 or 15cm apart, larger distances between plants would possibly result in larger onions but we do not have enough space and water is scarce here so everything is planted closer than optimal.  Just like all of the Alliums, they prefer a slightly alkaline soil but will grow in a neutral soil.  The more fertile the soil the better result you will obtain from them, just be careful not to have too much nitrogen in the soil otherwise you will get a lot of top growth at the expense of the bulbs.

We harvest when the tops dry off, then it is quite simple to pull them out of the soil and put them somewhere safe in the garage to dry off a little more.  After a few weeks I brush off the soil and they are ready to be put wherever it is that you store your onions.  Just like any other type of onion you do not have to dry them unless you plan to store them, you can dig them up to use whenever they are needed.

I have read in old books that you always plant a mix of different sized bulbs.  They say that small bulbs will grow and divide into a few large bulbs, and a large bulb will grow and divide into a whole bunch of small bulbs.  I always keep a range of sized bulbs to replant.  I am not sure if it makes any difference anymore, I have a feeling that those days are gone.  I also keep two varieties of potato onions, one brown and one white, and I find that each variety will grow better in some years than the other.  If I ever find any other varieties of potato onion I would love to grow them too.  Interestingly the white potato onion has become locally extinct in most countries in the world and only a handful of people are keeping it in Australia.  I would hate for either variety to disappear from Australia which is all the more reason to grow them both.

Becoming more self sufficient

The important part about potato onions is not to eat them all.  Ever!  In this way you will have them producing food for you forever.

As long as you always keep some to plant after harvest you should have potato onions for the rest of your life.  There is nothing more self sufficient than to dig up a potato onion nest for dinner, take some for eating, some for storage to eat later, and replant one into the very same hole you just dug them all out from.  This can go on potentially for the rest of your life and you would never run out of potato onions or need to get new ones from anywhere.  This is a good lesson to teach the kids, even if you are not explicitly teaching them they will still notice the attitude of taking only what you need as well as preparing for the future.

Having a great storage ability means that you never have to worry about what to do with the excess.  You either store them somewhere dry for later, or you plant them which is essentially storing them in the soil for later.  There is no need to run out of onions anymore.  We grow our vegetables without the use of poisons both "organic" or synthetic, in this way we gain a little more control over what we are eating.


Comparing potato onions with other types of culinary onions

Regular bulb onions are larger than potato onions.  This sounds great but usually ends in wasted onion as they are too large for whatever meal they were intended for.  Potato onions are small, while this lack of size causes you to spend slightly longer in peeling it does mean that you always have just the right amount of onion for the dish.  If you need more onion for the meal, you simply use more onions.  Regular onions are grown from seed and are biennial, requiring a long time to produce seed.  Potato onions reproduce through division of the bulb, they will do this efficiently each year.  Potato onions also grow a bit smaller and can fit into small spaces in the garden easily  This means that potato onions are relatively easier to grow year after year and take up little space.

Spring onions grow a larger and tougher leaf compared to the delicate foliage of the potato onion.  I prefer to eat the foliage of the potato onion to the spring onions as they are thinner and less fibrous.  While I do have some spring onions growing we tend to use the Everlasting onions more as we have more of them and they are a bit nicer to eat.  Everlasting onions are a perennial onion that we use in place of spring onions.  They also divide underground and will grow a small bulb that is much the same as a French Shallot.  Potato onions tend to divide a bit differently than everlasting onions, and grow more delicate foliage.  The bulbs taste a bit different, the potato onions taste more like a regular bulb onion and the everlasting onions taste more like a French shallot.  Overall they can be substituted for each other in meals but will give a slightly different result. 

French shallots and potato onions are essentially different strains of the same thing.  They taste and look a bit different, but can be easily substituted for each other.  Keep in mind that a small yellow cherry tomato and a large red beefsteak slicing tomato are essentially two different strains of the same thing, or a pug dog and an irish wolf hound are different strains of the same thing.  They can all be used interchangeably, but the results will differ slightly.  The French shallots have a milder taste, they do not store anywhere near as well as potato onions, and they do not divide as much as potato onions, but they tend to be slightly larger than potato onions.  I do like French shallots, but again we tend to use the Everlasting onions in their place.

Tree onions and potato onions are similar in that each will grow a small underground bulb that divides each year.  Tree onions grow a bit larger, and their foliage is taller and lot more rough, and they tend to divide less than potato onions.  Tree onions will send up a flower stalk and will grow small onion bulbs on this stalk instead of seed or flowers.  Potato onions tend not to flower, and if they do generally nothing much comes of it.  From what we have seen the tree onions tend to be hardier than potato onions and yield a more consistent crop despite the harsh climate.

Breeding new types of potato onions

Potato onions rarely flower, if they do flower very few viable seeds are produced.  Any resultant seedlings are said to display great genetic diversity and are meant to mostly grow very vigorously.  While you will not be able to eat the onion when it is flowering as it will become tough, it is worth it.  If any of the seeds are fertile they will grow into a new variety of potato onion, and from what I have heard the new type is far larger and healthier than the parent stock.  The onion bulb will not die after flowering so can be planted and grown on the following year, so if they do flower you have not lost much and you have a lot to gain.

I am trying my best to convince my potato onions to flower and try to get a few seeds out of them, so far they are reasonably unwilling but I have a couple of ideas that may help in the future.  For the first time ever I have a potato onion flowering this year.  The other potato onions are bit behind in growth to this one so there is a chance that some more may flower too.  I am extremely excited over this!

My first ever potato onion flower!  Not a large nest of potato onions after last year's heat

Even though my potato onions can flower there is no guarantee that they are able to produce viable seed.  If they are able to produce viable seed there is also a chance that something will happen to the flower this year so that I will not find out for another year or so.  As this is the first potato onion flower I have ever seen my anxiety levels are high, perhaps too high for something such as an onion.

There is some small scale potato onion breeding work going on overseas with someone who has made potato onions flower and set a small amount of seed.  His breeding notes are very comprehensive and can be read here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jnqst7-9YfWFovhqjARtcZZVJC0TPzKsow_5mdAwnyA/edit

While I am not currently producing potato onion seed, I do hope to do so in the future.  If the Australian strains of potato onions are never going to set viable seed, which is not unlikely, a small number of true potato onion seeds were imported into Australia and I have been in contact with one of the lucky few who were able to purchase them.  If all goes well hopefully one day I will be able to get hold of a few of the seeds or bulbs from the seed grown plants.

If I have extra bulbs I do sell potato onions, both brown and the much rarer white, on my for sale page.  Unfortunately I will not have any for sale in 2013 but I am building up their numbers as best I can in the hope to be able to offer them again next year.