Don’t miss this month’s GoingToSeed podcast with Joseph Lofthouse and Holly Hansen.
This month’s guest is Kelly Winterton of Utah. Kelly created the original ‘Green Mountain Multiplier’ following a chance flowering of his perennial potato onions (Allium cepa var. aggregatum).
Join us Sunday June 11, 2023 at 12:00 pm MDT.
Zoom Video Link:
You can learn more about Kelly’s work by reading his online potato onion journals.
Really looking forward to this! I have tried and failed with potato onions a couple of times.
Dangit I missed it! I started reading through Kelly’s site about the potato onions the other day and got lost in that rabbit hole. Very interested to hear about his work. Is anyone here growing potato onions from seed? They sounded really useful!
It was a good interview and will be available to listen to soon.
I am growing potatoes onions for seed this year. They are beginning to flower now.
I’m hoping to share through our seed exchange.
Fantastic! What color did you grow this year?
Green Mountain
Coral Mountain
Garnet Mountain
Norwegian
All above from Kelly Winterton
And Joseph Lofthouse shallots
Ooh, very excited to see seeds from those! Are they all flowering?
From what I’d read on Kelly’s site though, he’d mostly cloned them and lost the seed production. Maybe there’s still some in there? Did you fall plant or spring plant?
They are all flowering except Joseph’s, which is what I expected.
I fall planted.
Kelly’s onions are famous for producing seed. He explains if you clone them year after year they quit flowering. But he always maintains seeding onions as well.
Ohh, I misunderstood or didn’t get to the end of his booklet then. It had sounded like he’d cloned the flowering out of them.
That’s great news then!
Yeah it’s quite the opposite. Potato onions were basically all almost never flowering. His one time flowered and he kept the seed and started the whole movement of growing them from seed, revolutionising the world of potato onions it seems. He recommends still growing them from clones but refreshing the population like every 12 years, having started from seed in the beginning also. Start from seed to get the diversity so they can adapt to your land/methods, then make sure you refresh at least every 12 years to maintain their ability to flower. That’s my understanding of what he’s saying anyway.
My potato onions flowered one year recently. I saved seeds. Maybe I’ll plant them.