The Egyptian Walking Onions, scientifically known as Allium Proliferum, and sometimes also called tree onions, top onions, topset onions, or winter onions, are believed to be originally native to India or Pakistan and then later introduced into Europe. They get their famous name by the way they ‘walk’ across the garden.
Instead of flowers, this plant produces a cluster of bulbs at the top of its stalk. If not harvested, they eventually get too heavy for the stalk to handle and flop over, touching the ground. If the soil conditions are right, the fallen bulbs will take root and grow into new plants. This is how their ‘walk’ begins.
They are one of the very first plants to emerge from the ground in late winter/early spring. Their leaves emerge from the ground and point towards the sky. By late spring/early summer, their leaves become heavy spikes that can grow up to 60cm/90cm tall. Another unique thing about this type of onion is that bulbs grow at both ends, in the ground and in the air. The bulbs start out small and green but eventually grow larger with red or brown skins.
No need to worry about them being invasive either, they only move at a pace of a few centimetres a year and if you don’t want new plants, just harvest the top bulbs. You can plant them someplace else or eat them.
There are also several variations of the plant. Some will form long branches with few top bulbs, others will have no branches but a large cluster of bulbs at the top. All parts of the Egyptian Walking Onions are edible, and once harvested they can be stored for a few months.
M&P Engineering is a world leading UK based manufacturer of food processing equipment, including onion peeling machines and fresh cut machinery.
M&P Engineering boasts over 50 years’ experience designing, manufacturing, and supplying food processing machinery and offers a wide range of equipment, such as our Carousel Grid Cutting machine and our Radish Top & Tailer.
M&P Engineering’s Large Onion Peeling machine uses a dry peeling process, resulting in no waste slurry. It can peel, top and tail onions with diameters between 45mm and 115mm using its self-adjusting floating knife assemblies. The peeler uses compressed air to remove the skin, resulting in optimum end-product appearance. The large onion peeler has a raw material input rate of 750kg per hour when working at optimum speeds but can be adjusted to suit the needs of the processor.
If you would like to find out more information about M&P Engineering’s Large Onion Peeler, call us on +44 (0)161 872 8378 or contact us here.