We’re on the look out for any old shallots that are out there. Over the years we’ve had a few in the catalogue and would love to hear from you if you still have any of our old lines going; also we’re looking for red and white potato onions.

The garlic and onion family have always been an important part of our diets because of their nutritional and medicinal value, as well as their taste flavor characteristics. They are particularly powerful anti cancer vegetables.

Our ancestors had a far wider range of choices than we’ve been used to with only the chemically grown Pukekohe Long Keepers and the horrible Chinese garlic in the shops available commercially for many years. Learning to live with these old cultivars has been a delight to me and it’s surprising how long it takes to fully integrate them into one’s life again. Different ones work for different people.

Seed Saving:

In a home garden situation most members of the Allium family are very easy to save for seed because we collect the bulbs, (garlic, potato onions, tree onions, shallots) store them and replant in autumn /winter or early spring.  Others we just keep on dividing up, welsh bunching onions, multiplying leeks, multiplying spring onions)

The only species we are likely to be collecting seed of are the leeks (ampeloprasum) or the seeding types of onions (cepa). As they cross within species this means we can only grow one variety from each species, and if you’re planning on keeping your lines of seed strong for the long haul then you’ll need to grow a minimum of 50 plants to seed of both the cepa and the ampeloprasum species. I would suggest you plant several hundred onions, mark the 50 most true to type for seed saving and eat the rest.  It works best to harvest all the onions in summer, choose the best 50 for seed and plant them again in early spring to go to seed.

Flies and bees are the primary pollinators, not the wind. Isolation distances can be up to 5 kms (Seed to Seed) depending on geography. My feeling is that 5kms applies when one is planting acres of seed and you’re on the Canterbury Plains with no hills or valleys! I find that far smaller distances work where you have populations of only fifty and you have small valley systems and loads of hills and trees. We’d love to hear of your experiences.

Cultivation Tips

Garlic and onions do best in light, well drained, but heavily composted soil. Garlic is a gross feeder while it is growing tops, before the bulbs start forming. Stop fertilising once the bulbs start forming, but do not let them dry out until the tops begin to dry off. Bulbs will rot if watered past this point. Top Setting garlic should not be watered once the flower stems are obvious, as this will stress the plant causing it to form tight layers of protective skin.

ONIONS (Allium cepa)

Pukekohe Long Keeper EC

This Onion has been grown and selected for disease resistance and size in Kaiwaka for many years so it’s a special Northland cultivar!

Egyptian Tree Onions NZ

Egyptians Tree Onions were once widespread around the country; every good garden grew them. You plant a bulb, or bulbils, and they multiply and give good size bulbs, which are delicious raw or cooked, and they string up and keep well too. Plant around the shortest day, harvest mid summer.

Potato Onions NZ

Potato onions come in three colours, we only have the brown ones at the moment. They were common once, very delicious and easy to grow. Just pop an onion in the ground and six months later harvest a clump for each onion -planted. Potato onions hang and store beautifully, are excellent in any cooking they are also excellent pickled.

LEEKS (Allium ameloprasum) 

Multiplying leeks   

Many of you will remember these from grandma’s garden. They are a real backstop throughout the late winter and spring. They just keep on keep on multiplying up, and as long as you divide them up occasionally and compost them occasionally they’ll provide you with very delicate flavoured leeks as thick as your thumb.

Mussleburgh EC

This leek is one of the classic open pollinated leeks that’s been around and grown comercially for amny years in NZ.They are large, good flavoured leeks which if planted in October will produce  leeks for autumn, and they will sit all winter waiting to be pulled for the soup pot!

CHIVES (Allium scoenoprasum)

Aerial Chives NZ

Found growing wild in a northland forest these clumps of chives taste very delicious, slight aniseed flavour, and they have the most unusual tall willowy seed heads, They are at their best for picking from April through to mid winter, when they go to seed and produce aerial seed heads!

Multiplying Spring Onions NZ

I love these onions. They are the size of Spring Onions if grown well, they keep on multiplying like chives, and they are able to be picked all through the Summer when the Welsh Bunching onions are flowering. They die down in May when the Welsh Bunching Onions come into their own again. I pick big handfuls every day and use them whenever an onion or chives are required.

GARLIC (allium sativum)

Garlic in the shop garden

Rocambole NZ

Rocambole garlic is always fun in the garden, with the uncurling central seed stalks that look like a serpent unrolling in the sun. The garlic bulbs have one row of large cloves around a central stem, with pink/red skin and the garlic is strong and has a good flavour. The central stems cam be removed and eaten as a delicacy when young and tender or left to become propagation material for the following season. The cloves will be larger if the stems are picked early when they are elongating. We’ve been sent Rocambole from many places around NZ. It was obviously once common.

New Zealand Purple NZ

This is another delicious garlic, particularly adapted to grow in the north with a central stem similar to Rocambole, but without the serpent, and bulbils on top or half way up the stem. The stems can also be picked when young for eating which will mean larger garlic cloves. These have come from the Coromandel area.

New Zealand Purple Edible Seed Heads

Garlic Chives (allium tuberosum)

Garlic chives make fantastic garden borders with their compact neat growth habits and their wonderful long flowering white flowers. The flowers and leaves can be used to flavour any dishes where garlic is required. To propagate just divide up the clumps as they grow.

Society Garlic (allium tuberosum)

A very drought tolerant, ornamental member of the garlic/ onion family. This one has purple flowers for many months which are edible as are the leaves. Another perennial like garlic chives, and can be divided in the same way.