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2025
2025
New Genetics
For the 2025 crop I am introducing new genetics from the following sources:
Outlaw Farm: 25 bulbs
Poyntzfield - Black Isle, Scottish Highlands: five bulbs
"Base 1": 12 bulbs
2024
2024
Winter
Once again it was an extremely warm winter with all days hovering between 32-50°F (0-10°C), and it never dipped below 20°F (-6.6°C) during the night. Winter solstice 2023 it was 50°F (10°C) and Christmas 2023 40°F (4.4°C). Also, we only had a total of six days of light snow all winter which melted within a day or two.
On 1/1/2024 the yellow potato onion bulbs pushed up and broke dormancy.
New Genetics
For the 2024 crop I am introducing:
24 yellow potato onion bulbs from Filaree Garlic Farm that were originally sourced from Holland.
50 bulbs that were sourced from a backyard gardener in the Appalachian Mountains.
July Update: Wisconsin has had an unusually hot, wet 2024 season. We had equal days of rain and sun, which means the bulbs are small and medium size from the lack of sunshine. I did not have to water the gardens at all this summer, and often during 2024, there was standing water in the gardens. Many of the potato onions bulbs were waterlogged, and all of the seed stalk bulbs were mushy.
Fall Planting for 2025 Crop
I planted on 10/29 and 10/30/24, three weeks later than normal because the entire month of October it was dry (no rain) and in the high 60s and 70s.
"Base 1"
"Base 1"
I purchased 12 yellow bulbs on 11/2/24 and they arrived 11/6/24 - $25.00 USD or $2.08 each.
I've been trying to get my hands on these bulbs for almost a year. For the time being I'm simply going to call them "Base 1".
I don't want to risk losing this genetic strain, so nine will be fall-planted around Thanksgiving, two will be planted during April 2025, and one will be vacuum sealed and kept frozen as a back up.
Outlaw Farm
Outlaw Farm
I purchased 25 yellow bulbs on 10/23/24 - $52.50 USD or $2.10 each
October 2024 message from Outlaw Farm: "My sister got them from a gentleman she worked with. She’s had them for 20 plus years. That gentleman has passed on, so no clue where he got his from."
They were planted 10/29/24 for the 2025 season.
Black Isle Potato Onions
Black Isle Potato Onions
I traded six bulbs with a woman in the U.K.; one bulb was mushy and not viable. She calls her potato onions "brown", and purchased them from Poyntzfield Herb Nursery which is situated on the Black Isle in the Scottish Highlands.
September 2024 email from Poyntzfield: "The original potato onions were sourced via an exchange with a gardener 30-40 years ago and they've been grown here since."
They were planted 10/29/24 for the 2025 season.
Appalachian Mountain Potato Onions
Appalachian Mountain Potato Onions
A gentleman from North Carolina was kind enough to send me 50 yellow potato onions (1 large, 13 medium, 36 small) that have been passed down for generations (more than 100 years) in the Appalachian Mountains. His original source was a gentleman in Green Mountain, Mitchell County, North Carolina. Note: these are not the same as the "Green Mountain" variety cultivated by Kelly Winterton in Utah; it is a mere coincidence, so I will refer to these as Appalachian Mountain Potato Onions.
Due to the geographic location and various holler effects in the Appalachian Mountains, I'm guessing these are intermediate-day onions, and they fared well in a long-day environment.
Bulbs were received on 3/22/24 in good condition. The largest had started to sprout upon arrival. Sent him $30 USD ($0.60/bulb) for postage and his time.
He did mention that he had black aphids in his storage bin, so I soaked the bulbs bleach/water solution.
Contents of shipment, and soaking bulbs in a one-part bleach to nine-parts water solution for five minutes.
Video covers planting of the Appalachian Mountain Potato Onions on April 10, 2024, and various stages of growth, through harvest.
Overall, the Appalachian Mountain bulbs performed great. Of the original 50 planted, one rotted, and a few of the very small bulbs did not sprout. I was very pleased with the 109 bulbs that were harvested. While curing, 19 of the larger bulbs became mushy and unusable.
Filaree Garlic Farm Seed Bulbs
27 Filaree Garlic Farm seed bulbs were purchased. Three dried up during winter storage. 24 were planted. One seed bulb rotted in the ground. 146 bulbs were harvested.
Filaree is in Washington state, which is why I decided to spring plant the seed bulbs during the 2024 season.
2023
2023
Wisconsin had an unusually warm 2022/2023 winter, and the bulbs all sprouted one to two inches during January 2023. Then the snow came and temperatures dropped to sub-zero, yet all of the bulbs survived and thrived during the 2023 season.
Filaree Garlic Farm - I purchased one pound of yellow potato onion bulbs on 12/7/23 for $33.25 USD. 27 bulbs were delivered 12/11/23 (12 small, 12 medium, 3 large bulbs). Very pleased; they were all in pristine condition. In an email exchange I learned their original bulbs were sourced from Holland. They were spring-planted April 10, 2024. It was my first Spring planting of potato onions and as I suspected, they did not put up seed stalks. Surprisingly, they matured at the same time as my fall-planted bulbs.
Difference in yellow potato onion bulb sizes.
Preparing yellow potato onions for storage.
Super Nest
Super Nest
This was a single bulb planted 2021 five inches deep and accidentally left in the ground. I ignored it during the 2022 season because I thought it was a new bunching onion plant. I finally noticed it during the 2023 season when I saw the nest, and decided to leave the clones, uninterrupted, to see what would happen (see video to the right).
2023/7/29 I have not paid attention to this yellow potato onion nest all season because I thought it was a new set of bunching onions growing beside the years-old bunching onions (bottom of this pic).
2023/7/29 There were five sterile umbels on the potato onion nest.
Toward the end of this video I cut off the stalks and will leave the nest, as is, to see what happens during the 2024 season.
2023/07/11 Two of five plots prior to harvest. You can see that I plant them fairly close together - about 8 inches in between each mother bulb.
2023/07/11 Two of three wheelbarrows overflowing with the harvest.
2023/7/12 Harvest hanging in the garage to cure for six weeks. I started cutting the stalks off at four weeks, but was so humid that they weren't fully cured.
From what I have read, I harvest onions a bit early, while the stalks are still green. That is due to my work schedule, and what else in the garden needs to be harvested / preserved / canned / dehydrated, etc. during my days off.
2023 has been a great season. Very dry - it only rained lightly a total of three times during May, June and July. I watered on average once a week.
I planted 430 bulbs fall 2022 and harvested 2420 bulbs, an average of 5.6 daughters per mother.
2022
2022
This season I had two yellow potato onion umbels produce tiny green bulbils instead of seed. I have no desire to propagate potato onions that reproduce like walking onions via bulbils, so I culled them. I did not take pictures, but if it happens again in the future, I will photo-document it before culling them.
4/24/2022 Spring yellow potato onions coming through leaf mulch.
6/5/2022 Cutting some of the onion scapes to make fresh pesto and also dehydrate into powder.
7/26/2022 Umbels that were all sterile. I collected zero seeds 2022 season from roughly 50 umbels.
2021
2021
7/16/2021 750 bulbs curing in garage
10/22/2021 Bushel of 343 bulbs to be planted for 2022 crop
7/16/2021 Prior to harvest - all child bulbs are below ground because I planted the mothers too deep
7/16/2021 Partial harvest
7/16/2021 Two large bulbs in hand for size comparison.
2020
2020
9/25/2020 Spacing for first planting of 145 yellow potato onions bulbs.
2020 and 2021 I planted the tops of the bulbs five inches deep, because I didn't want them to freeze; not understanding at that time that the ground freezes up to 65 inches deep in Wisconsin. They froze anyway!
Beginning with the 2022 fall planting, and thereafter, I planted the bulbs so the tops were barely covered with soil, which protects them from frost and allows them to nest on top of the ground as they should.
Wisconsin had an unusually warm 2022/2023 winter, and the bulbs all sprouted one to two inches during January 2023. Then the snow came and temperatures dropped to sub-zero, yet all of the bulbs survived and thrived during the 2023 season.
With the fall 2023 planting, I'm going to perform a number of experiments.
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