Ailsa Craig Onion

Allium cepa

Origin: Great Britain

Improvement status: Cultivar

Seeds per packet: ~100

Germination tested 12/2020: 89%

Life cycle: Biennial

Ailsa Craig was introduced to commerce in 1887 by David Murray, the gardener of a British nobleman, the Marquis of Ailsa, at Culzean Castle in the Scottish town of Maybole, South Ayrshire. Under the ideal conditions, a single onion can reach sizes upward of 5 pounds! It has pale yellow skin and whitish flesh that has a sweeter flavor than most onions, making it ideal for fresh use. It does not store very long, so is best used quickly or processed for long-term use (dried, powdered, pickled, etc). These were grown for EFN by our friends Kass McKinnon and Clint Freund in Wisconsin.

[Photo by Wikimedia Commons user MOs810, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.]

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.