Your shopping cart is empty!
Chinense chives "Pikantny"
New
Fragrant onion “Piquant” — Allium odorum = Allium ramosum = Allium tuberosum = Allium odoratum.
The leaves are tender and juicy, remaining soft until late autumn.
A mid-season (35—40 days from germination to green harvest), winter-hardy perennial onion variety.
The plant does not form a commercial bulb. It is valued for its aromatic flat leaves, 30—35 cm long, which have a pleasant slightly spicy taste with a mild garlic flavor. They are juicy, tender, and do not toughen until late autumn. They regrow well after cutting.
Can be sown before winter to a depth of 1—2 cm. Mass harvesting starts from the 2nd year of vegetation: 3—4 cuttings per season. Adult plants can be used (as a potted crop) for growing green shoots indoors.
* The leaves of this onion are dark green, flat, triangular, juicy, and tender, without sharpness, with a mild garlic aroma, 30—35 cm long and 0.9—1.1 cm wide. Ascorbic acid content is 85—89 mg%; it features low fiber content, preventing the leaves from becoming coarse until late autumn. Flowering plants have a pleasant hyacinth aroma.
Harvesting of greens begins in the second year, 2—3 times a season.
Yield for a single harvest is 1.3—1.5 kg/m², and up to 2.7 kg/m² for multiple cuttings.
Sowing outdoors: April — May.
Harvesting: July — August.
Planting scheme: 20×30 cm.
Name: Worldwide, it is known as Chinese chives. In Southeast Asian countries, the scientific name of the species is tuberous onion (Allium tuberosum). It was given this name due to the resemblance of its fragrant flowers to the flowers of a famous plant from the amaryllis family. In Russia, this remarkable type of onion is traditionally called fragrant onion (Allium odorum). Most botanists, however, lean towards uniting the above species into one — branched onion (Allium ramosum).
Description: Apparently, fragrant onion was introduced into cultivation in China and in this capacity reached Japan, where it became a national favorite.
In the wild, fragrant onion is found in the mountains of Mongolia, Central Asia, Altai, and in the southern part of Western and Eastern Siberia. It grows on rocky slopes of the middle and lower mountain belts, on hills, meadows with alkaline soils, and in the valleys of mountain rivers that dry up in summer. This is a fairly heat-loving plant that regrows in spring after the onset of a stable period of positive temperatures. At the same time, fragrant onion is winter-hardy and can withstand frosts down to -45 °C, even with shallow snow cover.
The leaves are tender and juicy, remaining soft until late autumn.
A mid-season (35—40 days from germination to green harvest), winter-hardy perennial onion variety.
The plant does not form a commercial bulb. It is valued for its aromatic flat leaves, 30—35 cm long, which have a pleasant slightly spicy taste with a mild garlic flavor. They are juicy, tender, and do not toughen until late autumn. They regrow well after cutting.
Can be sown before winter to a depth of 1—2 cm. Mass harvesting starts from the 2nd year of vegetation: 3—4 cuttings per season. Adult plants can be used (as a potted crop) for growing green shoots indoors.
* The leaves of this onion are dark green, flat, triangular, juicy, and tender, without sharpness, with a mild garlic aroma, 30—35 cm long and 0.9—1.1 cm wide. Ascorbic acid content is 85—89 mg%; it features low fiber content, preventing the leaves from becoming coarse until late autumn. Flowering plants have a pleasant hyacinth aroma.
Harvesting of greens begins in the second year, 2—3 times a season.
Yield for a single harvest is 1.3—1.5 kg/m², and up to 2.7 kg/m² for multiple cuttings.
Sowing outdoors: April — May.
Harvesting: July — August.
Planting scheme: 20×30 cm.
Name: Worldwide, it is known as Chinese chives. In Southeast Asian countries, the scientific name of the species is tuberous onion (Allium tuberosum). It was given this name due to the resemblance of its fragrant flowers to the flowers of a famous plant from the amaryllis family. In Russia, this remarkable type of onion is traditionally called fragrant onion (Allium odorum). Most botanists, however, lean towards uniting the above species into one — branched onion (Allium ramosum).
Description: Apparently, fragrant onion was introduced into cultivation in China and in this capacity reached Japan, where it became a national favorite.
In the wild, fragrant onion is found in the mountains of Mongolia, Central Asia, Altai, and in the southern part of Western and Eastern Siberia. It grows on rocky slopes of the middle and lower mountain belts, on hills, meadows with alkaline soils, and in the valleys of mountain rivers that dry up in summer. This is a fairly heat-loving plant that regrows in spring after the onset of a stable period of positive temperatures. At the same time, fragrant onion is winter-hardy and can withstand frosts down to -45 °C, even with shallow snow cover.
MEDICINAL AND CULINARY QUALITIES.
Fragrant onion is highly popular as a green crop in Korea, India, Nepal, Thailand, and the Philippines as well. The leaves and flowers are eaten, and all parts of the plant are used in herbal medicine.
In treatises on ancient Indian, Chinese, and Tibetan medicine, fragrant onion is mentioned as a highly effective remedy for fatigue, depression, and vitamin deficiency. Doctors of that time prescribed it in the recovery period after poisoning and severe illnesses. In occult Eastern systems, fragrant onion is considered a means of protection against demons of the upper spheres.
The leaves of fragrant onion should be tender, juicy, and dark green. In Japan, the quality of greens is determined by a weak garlic aroma and leaf length: premium grade — leaves 23—28 cm long, 18—22 cm — good quality, and 15—17 cm — average. In China, they also grow blanched fragrant onions — faintly colored tender leaves, practically without sharpness. Under field conditions, plants are protected from light with awnings, straw mats, dark paper, etc.
Fragrant onion is used mainly raw, since processing loses up to 80% of vitamin C. Its juicy leaves lose freshness and vitamin reserves quite quickly; they can be stored for no more than 2—3 days at a temperature of 0 to +2 °C.
Even in small quantities, fresh fragrant onion greens stimulate the appetite, enhance the secretion of digestive juice, and promote better absorption of nutrients by the body. Green leaves contain up to 3% sugars, are rich in vitamin C, carotene, mineral salts, especially calcium and iron salts, and vitamins B1 and B2. In cooking, it is widely used to garnish dishes, as the main component of salads with various sauces, and also in salads with other vegetables, eggs, fish, and seafood.
Thanks to its dark green leaves resembling lush grass and loose openwork umbels with fragrant, white, star-like flowers, fragrant onion is very attractive. Therefore, it has always been grown as an ornamental plant, and its flowers used for bouquets. As an ornamental plant, fragrant onion looks very beautiful in mixed borders, in clumps on lawns, and low-growing forms are indispensable for rockeries. It is also an excellent honey plant, and the honey from it has neither an onion smell nor taste.
BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Fragrant onion is a long-growing perennial plant, propagated by seeds and dividing the bush. The rhizome, similar to the rhizome of a bearded iris, branches quite strongly, forming dense clumps. Thick roots extend from the lower part of the rhizome, penetrating into the soil much deeper than the roots of bulb onions and garlic, so soils with a deep arable horizon are preferred for this plant.
The bulbs are narrow-cylindrical or narrow-conical, weakly expressed, covered with dark brown reticulate tunics; in some varieties, the bulbs increase in diameter with age. However, in all forms, the main storage organ is not the bulb, but the rhizome.
The leaves are flat, 0.5—1.0 cm wide, slightly keeled, tapering to the top. The process of leaf formation and growth continues from spring to autumn; every 8—10 days a new leaf appears, and starting from the second half of summer, the process of leaf drying occurs simultaneously.
The inflorescence — a hemispherical fasciculate umbel — is located on a tall (30—80 cm) straight flower stalk, oval in cross-section, with two sharp ribs. Before flowering, the inflorescence is covered with a pointed spathe, which, having torn, remains at its base.
The flowers of this species are very fragrant. The perianth segments are snow-white on the inside, and dirty pinkish on the outside with a central dark green vein.
Each bulb forms from two to four inflorescences a year. Flowering of an adult plant (older than 3 years) begins in mid-July and continues until autumn frosts. On it, you can simultaneously see blooming umbels, inflorescences in spathes, and seed pods opening or with ripened seeds. The bulk of the leaves accumulates on the plant by the beginning of flowering. Seeds ripen from mid-August. They are round, black, and shiny.
Seeds are collected from flowering 3—4-year-old well-developed plants. The umbels are cut with stalks about 30 cm long; after drying, they are threshed and cleaned. Seeds do not retain viability for long, so they are usually sown in the spring of the following year.
CULTIVATION ON THE PLOT.
All aspects of green quality depend on cultural conditions. For the development of fragrant onion plants, the optimal temperature is +20 °C, but it also grows normally at lower temperatures in the temperate climate zone.
Fragrant onion has adapted well to many soil types, but on fertile, well-fertilized lands it adapts better in any climatic zone.
In the homeland of the fragrant onion, methods of its cultivation have historically evolved, which can serve as the basis for agricultural technology in any climatic zone with appropriate adaptation to growing conditions.
In Northern China, fragrant onion is traditionally grown as a perennial crop from 7 to 30 years. Seeds are sown in spring to a depth of 1 cm, in four furrows. In the first year, the plants are watered only in case of extreme necessity to obtain a developed root system, and the leaves are not cut. The next year, in early spring, dead leaves are removed, the plants are hilled at the base of the shoots, and the rows in the furrows are sprinkled with a 4—6 cm layer of sandy soil to obtain blanched false stems.
After leaf regrowth, the rows are thinned, forming the necessary distance between plants. Plants can also be transplanted from a seedling bed to a permanent place. In this case, seedlings are placed in ribbons of 4 lines; the distance between lines is 35 cm, and between plants in a row is 16 cm.
Starting from the second year, three leaf cuttings are carried out per season (when the plants reach a 20-centimeter height) with an interval of 20—30 days; at the end of summer, cuttings are stopped.
In late autumn, the beds are harrowed. To remove old and dead roots, the soil around the plants is mulched with a 1—5 cm layer of loose humus.
Top dressing is applied after cuttings. Transplanting and dividing fragrant onion bushes are done in spring, because in early autumn the plants are still blooming and therefore take root less successfully.
As a rule, fragrant onion does not bloom in the first year after sowing (an exception is varieties from South Asia, which bloom in the first year after the formation of 5—6 leaves).
In the third and subsequent years, four cuttings of inflorescences are made for bouquets.
