What it is
Wild Onion / Wild Garlic (Allium canadense) is in the Amaryllidaceae (Amaryllis) family. If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion, it's safe. No onion smell = do not eat (the deadly rule).
How to grow it
It wants full sun to part shade, water it any, and give it any soil. Target a soil pH around Adaptable. Expect roughly Spring. Native perennial bulb.
How it's used
Wild Onion / Wild Garlic is used: bulbs and greens like onion/garlic.
🔎 How to identify it
- Grass-like hollow leaves
- Distinct onion/garlic smell
- Small bulb at base
Edibility
How to grow & propagate wild onion / wild garlic
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 wild onion / wild garlic
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 wild onion / wild garlic in Texas
Give it full sun to part shade and any soil. Match the spot to the plant and most of the battle is already won.
Time your planting to our long warm season and watch the frost dates at both ends; the live weather tool on this site is built for exactly that.
Keep moisture even, especially while it's young — deep, less-frequent soaks build better roots than a daily sprinkle.
Harvesting
Figure on roughly spring before you're harvesting. The part you're after: bulb and leaves.
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.
Before you forage it
A safety note, because this one grows wild: positive identification comes before anything goes in your mouth or your medicine. Confirm it on several features — leaf, stem, flower, smell — not a single resemblance, check the lookalike warnings, and never forage from roadsides or sprayed ground. When in doubt, leave it out.
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.