Walking onions at the heritage garden near the Durant-Peterson House Museum pictured in the background. Photo by Debra Corwin, May 28, 2024.
A little garden behind the Durant-Peterson House Museum (pictured here) is tended by volunteers and grows vegetable varieties that would have been available to the Durant family in the mid-nineteenth century. The garden is home to an impressive patch of walking onions (allium x proliferum). This time-honored vegetable has been cultivated for centuries and used in ancient civilizations, including Greece, Egypt, and Rome. This onion variety produces small bulbs on the TOP of the stalk (as seen in the photo). As the bulbs enlarge, they get heavy and cause the stalk to bend, allowing the new onion to set its roots in the soil giving the impression that it “walks.” Because of this, the vegetable is commonly called walking onions! When you are strolling through LeRoy Oakes Forest Preserve in St Charles, be sure to follow the new Heritage Trail that will guide you from the Creek Bend Nature Center past the historic barns, the one-room 1872 Sholes School, and to the 1843 Durant-Peterson House to this special garden.
Volunteers (who meet at the garden on Mondays at 9:15 AM) have cleared the weeds, turned the soil, and planted squash, beans, potatoes, radishes, greens, cucumbers, and broomcorn in our heritage garden.
If you enjoy gardening, join us as a volunteer on Mondays at 9:15AM, April-September. See you soon!
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