Allium cepa
Origin: Italy
Improvement status: Cultivar
Seeds per packet: ~100
Germination tested 11/2024: 90%
Life cycle: Biennial
Cipollini onions are the classic little flat sweet and pungent Italian onions beloved by chefs and gourmands. In Italian the name literally means "little onions." They are great for use in any recipe calling for onions or shallots, but they really shine when braised or baked alongside a main dish, roasted whole, grilled, fried, or pickled. Cipollinis are also great onions to grow from seed because they ripen relatively quickly, and therefore don't necessarily need to be started months in advance under glass. They also keep for a solid two or three months, so you can be eating them well into winter (or much longer, of course, if you pickle them or freeze them). We haven't tried it, but we've been told these make great homemade onion powder or dried onion. Our seed was grown by Clint Freund and Kass McKinnon in Milaca, Minnesota.
Special thanks to our friends at Adaptive Seeds for the photo (the one without Clint!).
GROWING TIPS: Definitely best to transplant healthy onion starts in early spring. Start them indoors or in greenhouse. We typically put 3-4 seeds per cell in 50-cell or 72-cell trays, transplanting out the entire cell with 2-4 onion starts in it together. Plant out individual cells every foot.
