Nature's Goodies: Onion Grass

This is first in a series of posts about things appearing wild in my yard.  I’m hoping to track down more that I may not yet recognize, but as I go along, here they will be.

Semi-photogenic clump located at the edge of the lawn.

Onion grass is indeed in the genus, Allium.  If you uproot them, there are little micro-bulbs down there, but I don’t tend to uproot them.  A little too much dirt per bulb to clean off.

The best idea is to harvest the greens above ground.  This is the first harvest-able item in my yard every year, planted or foraged.

The greens are thin and fine — you’ll lose their flavor if you cook with them.  Best is to sprinkle them over salads for a fine onion-y taste.  And the thing is, even if they are in the middle of the lawn, as some of mine are, they’ll come back year after year, mowed-over or not.  As long as you don’t pull out the bulbs.  Or put down @#@!Herbicide!#@#@!

(Yes, this is a Monsanto-free lawn…  I’m on a septic system, for one, and I don’t want to come into physical contact with the stuff, for another.  So: it means my lawn is not pristine.  Guess what — NO ONE had pristine “weed-free” lawns until after WWII, when a new market had to be devised for these killing agents which were useful in wartime.)   At this point, if my lawn is (summertime) green, has no prickers or poison ivy, it’s a good lawn.  If I had the time or the full sun, I’d plant the whole thing in veggies with a few ornamental plants.  It isn’t:  I proudly grow early spring bulbs in my lawn.  Splashes of color are welcome when winter goes away (well, talking about winter most years, but even this year the splashes of color are truly enjoyable).

Anyhow, do sprinkle these over your salad, of just about any sort, except spicy.  The onion flavor here is delicate, and deserves to be respected.  It seems difficult to over-harvest any given clump, unless, say, you take all the greens in March or very early April.  Mowing has never made them go away.

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