Some of my favorite food plants are in the genus Allium.  Garlic is one of my favorite garden plants (read about it here, here, here, here and here), and I have it in the garden proper and the food forest.

Pictured here are shallots, which around here are planted, like most things allium, in October.  They start rooting and growing in the fall, stall out with the cold temperatures and snow, and then jump up in the early spring and mature in the summer.

In addition to garlic and shallots, I’ve got garlic chives, several kinds of traditional bulb onions, leeks, chives, Chinese leeks, elephant garlic, Egyptian walking onions (these are top setting onions), and hopefully (someday, if they germinate) bear’s garlic and ramps.  Potato onions are intriguing, but I haven’t planted any.  Perhaps in the early spring…  Until then, seed catalogs.