Allium

A clumping perennial onion-relative forming dense grass-like tufts of hollow tubular leaves + globular lavender-pink flowerheads in late spring. Edible leaves + flowers; among the easiest perennial vegetables for beginners. Globular flowerheads are major early-season nectar sources for honey bees + native bees.

A bulb-forming Allium grown for its multi-clove storage bulb. Planted in fall, overwinters as small green shoots, bulks up in spring, and is harvested in early-to-mid summer. Hardneck cultivars (most cold-hardy) also produce edible "scapes" — curling flower stalks harvested in early summer. Companion-plants well with most vegetables; deters some aphids + Japanese beetles.

A cool-season onion-family vegetable grown not for a bulb but for its thick, mild, blanched white stalk — a tight cylinder of leaf bases capped by a fan of flat, blue-green, strap-like leaves. A biennial that flowers only rarely in cultivation, leek is grown in U.S. gardens as an annual and gardeners trench or mound soil around the stems to lengthen the sweet white portion. The stalk and leaves carry a delicate, sweet, mild oniony flavor without the pungency of most onions.

A biennial Allium grown as an annual for its bulb. Day-length sensitive — northern gardens need long-day cultivars; southern gardens need short-day cultivars; intermediate-day cultivars suit zones 6-7. Planted in spring (sets) or fall (over-wintering); harvested in summer when tops fall over. Edible-as-greens at any stage (green onions / scallions).

A spring-ephemeral wild leek of eastern North America’s rich, moist deciduous woods — the earliest edible green to carpet the forest floor each spring with broad, smooth, leek-scented basal leaves. The foliage withers by early summer, when a leafless scape rises to lift a rounded umbel of small white flowers above the leaf litter. Prized but heavily over-harvested as a foraged food, so it is best grown deliberately in deep woodland shade.