The Doppelganger In My Garden!

  It is not a lie when I tell you that I grow a lot of Allium related plants in my garden.  The chives have just about taken over, the garlic is doing extremely well, shallots are being quite happy and onions are constantly being replaced as I use them.  I have lots and lots of alliums!  Why?  First, I use a lot.  While Mark and Son are not big on any of the above, I could eat them at every meal and be perfectly blissful.  Second, they are just so easy to grow!  Plop them in the ground and forget about them for a while and then you have a fine crop.  Almost all of the alliums in my gardens are from salvaged root ends from store-bought ones.  I just save the last half inch near the root end and stick it in a bit of water for a day then plant.  Ta da!!!  Onions, shallots, garlic, chives...oh, my!  The original plants are still going strong and multiplying like crazy so no more store bought alliums!

The onion impostor!

  Then, there is one cluster of bulbs that mimics the onions.  Well, it looks a lot like wild onions when you first look at the plant.  It grows from a bulb, has leaves like an onion and makes white blooms like some onions.  Other than the blooms being slightly different, the biggest identifying factor is that these plants do not have the strong smell that true alliums have.  So, big tip here!  If it looks like an onion and smells like an onion...it is an onion.  If that smell is lacking, don't eat it!  The plant is an impostor!  It may be a pretty impostor but it is still an impostor!  I have never eaten one so cannot attest to this fact but the plant is said to be poisonous!  Do not eat!  Why take the chance when you can just take a sniff to tell the difference? 

  The false onion, false garlic or (what Pop called it) crow's poison does indeed have a place in my garden but not where it has so inconveniently decided to grow.  I would hate for some unsuspecting visitor to pull the plant thinking they are going to cook up some fantastic dish then discover too late that what they just stir-fried was not a cluster of onions at all.  So, the plant will be dug and moved to the flower garden to add a bit of early springtime beauty.