What it is
Potato Onion (Allium cepa var. aggregatum) is in the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis) family. An heirloom multiplier onion: plant one bulb, harvest a clump, save the biggest to replant forever. Stores beautifully.
How to grow it
It wants full sun, water it moderate, and give it loose, well-drained soil. Target a soil pH around 6.0–7.0. Space plants about 6–8 in apart. Expect roughly 90–120; replant largest. Hardy perennial.
How it's used
Potato Onion is used: bulbs and greens.
🔎 How to identify it
- Onion-like clump dividing underground
- Forms a nest of 4–12 bulbs from one
- Long-storing dry bulbs
Edibility
How to grow & propagate potato onion
Everything I've worked out about starting this one, keeping it alive through a Texas year, and turning one plant into many — free.
How to propagate potato onion
The onion family is grown three ways: from seed, from little bulbs called sets, or — for garlic and shallots — by breaking apart a bulb and planting the individual cloves. Garlic and perennial onions are the easiest of all: plant a clove in fall, harvest a whole head the next summer, and save your biggest heads to replant. You never have to buy it again.
Growing potato onion in Texas
Give it full sun and loose, well-drained soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Because it's a perennial, the work is mostly up front. Get it sited and established and it comes back on its own year after year — one of the best returns on effort in the whole garden.
Keep moisture even, especially while it's young — deep, less-frequent soaks build better roots than a daily sprinkle.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly 90–120; replant largest before you're harvesting. Harvest at peak and keep harvesting — most vegetables produce harder the more you pick, and one left to over-mature tells the plant its job is done. The part you're after: bulbs, greens.
Making more for free
Every seed we sell is open-pollinated, which means you can save your own from the best plants and it'll grow true next year. Let a few of your strongest plants finish and go to seed, dry it fully, and store it cool and dark. That's the whole point of heirlooms — buy once, grow forever.
Keep this knowledge offline
A garden full of potato onion is a real asset when times get hard — but the know-how to grow, store, and use it shouldn't live only on a website you can't reach. That's why I keep a copy of the references I rely on on a local server at home. Project NOMAD is a free, open-source way to run Wikipedia, survival and medical guides, maps, and even a private AI on your own hardware — knowledge that keeps working with no internet, no cloud, no signal.
See how I keep my library offline →Part of the free Texas Roots plant database, compiled by Jordan Polasek from his greenhouse in El Campo, Texas. Free to read and share. If it helped, the best thanks is to grow something.