With its ball-shaped and bright purple inflorescences, the ball onion sets interesting accents in the garden. It looks good as a single plant, but it expresses itself even better when grouped together. Reason enough to tackle propagation
How can ball garlic be propagated successfully?
Ball garlic can be propagated using bulbs or seeds. When propagating using brood onions, these are carefully separated from the mother onion in autumn and planted. Seeds should be sown immediately after the seeds have ripened in late summer, although outdoor sowing is recommended as ball garlic is a cold germinator.
Using onions for propagation
The most proven method for propagating bulbous leeks is via their bulbs. In most varieties, these develop in the soil directly next to the mother bulb in summer. In very few varieties the breeding bulbs (also called daughter bulbs) arise directly on the inflorescence.
You have to remove the onions in the ground in order to multiply the onions. Dig the mother bulb out of the ground in autumn. The onions stick to it. Carefully peel them off. Then they can be planted.
Planting vital seed bulbs
Before planting: Only use firm, plump, bright and he althy-looking bulbs! All other onions should be sorted out and disposed of:
- Dig a 10 to 15 cm deep planting hole
- loose up the soil
- Put the onions in with the tip facing up
- leave at least 15 cm between the individual bulbs
Sowing seeds on time
Immediately after the seeds ripen (late summer), the perfect time has come to sow the seeds. You can either buy the seeds or harvest them yourself. The seed heads are simply cut off for harvesting as soon as the seeds are black.
The seeds are cold germinators. This makes sowing seeds at home a little more complicated. It is therefore more advisable to sow the seeds directly outdoors. You can plant the early specimens outside in spring.
When pre-growing at home, proceed as follows:
- Place seeds in damp kitchen paper
- Keep moist for 2 to 4 weeks at around 20 °C
- then place in the fridge or on the balcony for 6 weeks
- then fill pots with potting soil (€6.00 on Amazon)
- Sow seeds 1 cm deep (dark germinator)
- keep moist
Disadvantages of sowing/self-seeding
The disadvantages of sowing/self-sowing are that seed formation takes a lot of energy from the bulb leek. He becomes more susceptible to illness. In addition, it takes around 3 years after sowing for the bulbous leek to bloom for the first time.
Tip
If you put the onions in the ground in autumn, the bulb onions can bloom the next year.