What is your favourite perennial veg?

[Jay-ell]

Mine arrived today too! Two in a pot. I’m going to plant them out on the weekend. Maybe this year I’ll leave them to multiply? What kind of conditions would be best do you think?

I’d leave them to multiply out a bit as well. Depending on how tangled the roots are you could tease the two stems apart and plant them an inch or to away from each other to give them a chance to grow. It might not be until next year till you see the patch growing so don’t fret if it spends all year with just 2 stems. Some alliums will split during the season whilst some others will make baby bulbs underground that will spring into life later. Others will have a rhizome grow underground from which the new plants will grow.I’ve not grown Nutans before but I think that it’s the rhizome type.

As with other alliums they’ll do best with full sun, but I’ve found that a lot of perennial alliums can cope with a bit of shade.

Their natural environment is Siberia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tibet, China where it grows in damp and moist places so it will need moisture retentive soil.

I’d work in some garden compost or composted manure. Too much nitrogen and they’ll romp away but the flavour and nutritional value will suffer so go easy with the fertiliser. You can always side dress it later with some blood fish and bone.

If you have a bag of microrhizal fungus you can prime the hole and the roots with that as alliums don’t have an extensive root system and need to have the connection with fungus to get the best conditions but don’t worry if you don’t have that as it will form in the soil, especially as it’s a perennial so you won’t be digging over that area and damaging all the fungus.

[mysteryduck]

VG, Jay-ell, thank you both for the advice. My aliens and brassica will be in safe hands!

I’ll source some mycorrhizal fungi.. I think it’s worth the investment. I have a researcher friend who works on the stuff and I fancy having an experiment

[Jay-ell]

mycorrhizal fungi don't work with brassicas.

I discovered this little nugget last year after doping all my brassicas with the stuff.

[mysteryduck]

mycorrhizal fungi don't work with brassicas.

I discovered this little nugget last year after doping all my brassicas with the stuff.

That’s true! Brassicas don’t use the mycorrhizal network. I guess they had a falling out many years ago and went off the grid

[Babru]

Great thread I'm looking to have something similar so all these suggestions will give me lots to research.

One suggestion though, horseradish, is very invasive, impossible to kill (spreads underground, each bit makes a new plant), so maybe not ideal for a back garden.