I cook very, very rarely, but I’ve just used potato onions in what has turned out to be a surprisingly tasty potato onion soup. Even my father says so, and he’s a pretty awesome cook (awesome as in I’m in awe of his cooking skills). I thought I was using shallots that he had taken from his tiny backyard garden, but he has told me they are not, and are in fact what he calls potato onions. I asked him why in the world they’re called potato onions, when they’re obviously nothing like a potato.
His answer was “I don’t know, that’s just always what we’ve called them, because they’re always planted near the potato patch. They seem to do really well there.”

My father grew up as a subsistence farmer in the mid/upper Ohio River valley region. It may seem a little on the folk-name side for calling them potato onions, but a rural/folksy origin of the name sounds very likely to me.

I ordered some yellow potato onions (from Southern Exposure) with the understanding that they would be shipped to me in September. But now I have been notified that they already shipped and are on their way to me (CA). We usually have pretty hot, dry summers (upper 90′s and 100 + fairly often). Our house temp. gets up to the 80′s usually everyday and down to maybe 70 at night. So my question is should I try to save them until Sept. before I plant them? Will they keep okay if our house is not that cool? I don’t have a root cellar or basement. Just a large pantry where I could put them on the floor and they would be in the dark. Maybe my neighbor who uses her AC more than we do would be willing to keep them in her house for me.

Or should I go ahead and plant them now (end of June) and then replant whatever was able to grow from them in the fall?

Maybe I’ll do an experiment and plant half now and keep the other half until Sept.!

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your advice!