Potato Onion SEEDS

Potato onions are a perennial multiplying onion, slightly smaller than regular onions, but their advantages are they are easier to grow and they keep for much longer in storage, up to a year in my experience. Potato onions used to be popular in North American gardens, but fell out of favour eventually, possibly because they could not be mechanically harvested.

Plant these seeds once, then keep some of the onions for replanting next year. In their first year, these seeds will grow into a single onion. Harvest them once the tops die back around August. Store them inside over winter. Eat the biggest onions, and replant the smallest ones in spring. Generally, if you plant larger onions, they will multiply into many smaller onions. If you plant smaller onions, they will multiply into larger, fewer onions.

If you want to produce seeds, leave the onions in the ground overwinter, and they are more likely to flower. Many potato onion varieties only flower very rarely (if you can find them for sale at all!), so can only be propagated by replanting the onions. This variety is nice because many of them flower readily, which enables you to quickly establish a large patch of onions.

This seed mix is a base of the Andy's Green Mountain Multiplier "variety", which is a cross between Green Mountain Multiplier (bred by Kelly Winterton of Utah) and a Yellow Potato Onion (cross made by Andy Hahn in Colorado). The resulting seeds are diverse- a range of colours, sizes (some as large as a grocery store onion in their first year!), and traits. Last year I also allowed some beautiful red Lorient bulbs to flower (this variety is a hybrid), as well as a local yellow variety I've been calling Errington Heirloom. The resulting mix has even more colour and diversity than before! Each seed in this mix could result in a new potato onion variety. 

We need more backyard breeders developing vegetable varieties that are regionally-adapted. There's been a huge loss of diversity in heirloom potato onion varieties over the years. Let's bring it back!! Simply save onions from your favourite plants for planting again next year, multiply it over the years- and you've got your own variety.

Some traits I am focussing on in different breeding lines include larger and more numerous onions per plant, long storage, winter hardiness, and seldom-flowering.

Hardy to zone 4 if you want to leave the bulbs in the ground over winter to perennialize. Can probably be grown in colder zones if you make sure to bring all the bulbs inside for winter, which most growers do anyway.