The onion buttons we planted well over a week ago haven’t come up yet. I know they are waiting on rain and then they will start reaching their green sword leaves towards the sun until they look like a muster of soldiers all lined up.
I’ve had several folks ask me about planting onion buttons, because they’ve never heard the term. They are only familiar with onion bulbs or onion sets.
onion set noun A miniature green onion.
1986 Pederson et al. LAGS = attested by 5/60 interviewees (8.3%) from E TN; 5/18 of all LAGS interviewees (27%) attesting term were from E TN. 2009 Benfield Mt Born 40 When onions were put out in the spring they were always referred to as “onion sets.”
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
I asked Granny this morning if she’d always heard them called onion buttons. She said her mother and father called them onion buttons and that’s all she’d ever known them by.
I did an internet search to see if there was anything about the onion button usage online, but didn’t find much. I did discover in the UK onion buttons are small onions cooked in a variety of ways.
A quick look in all my reference books on Appalachian language didn’t turn up anything either, other than the onion set entry.
My books come in handy. I love flipping through them looking for this or that or sometimes just looking at the entries.
It doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while I wish I could add an entry to a book. Onion button is one of the things I wish I could add.
Do you plant onion buttons, onion bulbs, or onion sets? Then again you might start your onions from seed.
Last night’s video: Shed Update & Trip to Town.
Tipper
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My part of Appalachia I have only heard onion sets or slips. I always plant onion sets. I had never heard them called onion buttons until I heard you say it. I checked mine yesterday and they are peeping through.
In Sevier County, we always planted bulbs AND sets. Never heard them called buttons.
We call them “sets” that grow the small onions and we call the ones that make big onions “slips” Momma also said “bubs” for bulbs.
That’s lipoylated sugar, not granulated or diabetes.
I don’t plant or eat any type of onions. They would mess up my sugar and my wouldn’t let me kiss her even after I brushed my teeth two or three times.
Every spring at planting time, my grandparents and my parents always referred to planting onions as needing to go to the seed store to get “onion sets.” I had never heard of “onion buttons” until I started watching your videos and reading your blog.
I wish you could add to the books as well. I love the term onion buttons and would have to say your channel is the first place I ever heard the term. I love learning all the regional language and history of your area!
We always called them “onion bulbs” but because of their size I can see why they would be called buttons. I like that term, and I had never heard it until I started watching your channel.
We always called them onion sets. I raised multiplying onions for many years and some walking onions but they finally run out
I’ve always heard them as onion buttons.
As far as I can remember, my family never called them onion buttons. I bought a bag of prepackaged onion sets and planted them Tuesday. The package has ‘onion sets’ printed in large, bold letters across the cardboard hanger. Onion buttons would be a prettier name for them.
I also never heard buttons til I found your channel but I like it!
Last time we planted onions, it was sets, I guess- bought at Tractor Supply. We planted 60 and got almost that many smallish onions out of our garden. I sure did prize them! This year I ordered Yelliw Cippollini onions and expected sets but got seeds. I sowed them on Monday along with 3 types of lettuce. I hope they make.
Our Ky family called them onion sets. We added them to lettuce that Mom grew along with bacon pieces and top it with hot bacon grease-wilted salad they called it. I loved it and haven’t had any in years. Mom and Dad also liked milk, or buttermilk when they had it, and cornbread. I have planted onion sets for the last ten years but last year nothing grew in our garden because of the drought and the deer ate the rest of the garden.
I have only heard of sets of onions. I think, though, that calling them buttons is very colorful, sweet and visually accurate!
I’d never heard them called anything other than “onion buttons” until, not too long ago, I went to a hardware store that had a loose basket of them out front. There wasn’t anything to put them so I went inside and asked for a little poke “to put some onion buttons in”.
“I don’t think we have onion buttons.” was the puzzled faced reply.
“You do, they are setting outside, right under that winder.”
“You’ll have to show me.”
“No, those are onion sets.”
“Well you can sell them to me as sets and I’ll buy them as buttons, how’s that? I need about ½ a pound.”
That was at Espey’s Hardware 401 Old State Hwy 10 W, Hildebran, NC 28637. They are the closest thing to an old fashioned hardware store in my area and the nicest people you would ever want to meet.
In southeast KY were I grew up it was always onion “sets” but sweet potato “slips”. (Slips is a biblical word in the KJV.) You make me wonder what I called them when I “set out” the little green onions. This year I planted the “sets”. Had never heard of onion button as I recall until today. It is off the subject but I happened to think the other day of the expression “wear their heart on their sleeve” said of somebody tender-hearted but because of it easily hurt.
Ron, we also seat out about 500 or more sweet potato “slips” each year when I was a kid. Daddy would sell or give some away each year but always kept plenty for our own use. I have also heard the expression “wearing their heart on their sleeve.” Have you every heard “ a shoulder to cry on?”
I have a farmer friend that sets out at least 25,000 sometimes more sweet potato slips each year. It is a big money crop for him, but he said he didn’t know what he was going to do, he now has a hard time of getting help when he takes them up.
Tipper, I have an adventurous brother who adds and amends to all types of words and definitions unique to the TIDEWATER region of Virginia on Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia. I get a charge out of how proud he seems to be over his latest entries and sometimes he will just say “ look up so and so” and when I read it, he laughs and enjoys himself at my expense which is lots of fun because I’m surprised how smart he is and he’s not surprised I’m easily tricked and entertained… it works out, but I will ask him specifics so you too can decipher and contribute Appalachian words the world needs to know… btw, they’re onion sets here in WV or as the kids say baby onions. I don’t care what you call an onion “baby,” let’s just be thankful the Good Lord keeps ‘em coming!!! THANKYOU Lord, for the good things only you provide!
My mama and dad always called them onion sets, so that’s what I still say. Hubby went to Shop and Save to pick up milk and bananas, and he found they had onion sets. He came home with three paper sacks of red, white, and yellow ones. We hope to dig up the garden today and get those in the ground. We always try to eat a row and replant them as long as we have onion sets left. I can’t wait to eat a fresh green onion with a bowl of soup beans…and corn bread of course.
I’ve always heard them referred to as onion sets. But I think onion buttons suits them due to their small size.
Here in Indiana I’ve only heard of onion sets, but I like the term buttons, that is what they more closely resemble.
They are called sets here, never heard the term onion buttons. I went online, and the only thing they showed were actual buttons with a picture of an onion on it.
I’m pretty sure my daddy called them that and we grew up in Florida. I would have been pretty young, so it is hard to remember if my grandpa called them that too.
We called them “onion buttons”.
I put out onion sets last year and had almost 100% crop failure. Last year was a terrible year for growing anything, so I replaced all the soil in my beds and I’m starting fresh. I raised potato onions in some planters that I got from Lidl and they did fantastic over the winter. This is my first year growing potato onions.
Bulbs are what we called those (in the photo). Bunches of sprouted onions that come in bundles of fifty or so were called ” onion sets” in my neck of the woods. Either one will make an onion. I always liked fresh green onions with what we called “Indian Salad” which was fresh mustard greens with cut-up green onions and fried bacon crumbled and added to it. Then, the hot bacon grease would be poured over the greens/bacon/onion mixture. Add a big glass of buttermilk and piece of cornbread and I am “ready to go”!
I hope everybody in the path of the storms forecast for this weekend has taken the prudent precautions we in “tornado alley) know so well such as having cell phones/devices charged, ample back-up light sources, and has some way of getting weather alerts whether it be weather app for home area on the cell phone/NOAA weather radio, etc., have secured any “lighter” items around the house that might be or cause damage by being moved by the winds, and most importantly have a plan to “go to a safe place”.
Goodluck and Godspeed.
Jeffery in Alabama
I guess that onion button is similar to a gladiolus bulb, I dug up a gladiolus over in the field last year, transferred it to the house, I hope it comes up this spring, I also bought some new bulbs, I have plenty several of those, pointed end up, someone told me I would not have flowers this year, the packaging says I will have flowers in 12 weeks, I really hope so, God bless you friends, God bless Granny Wilson
onion slips or sets are what I remember most but ever sense I started watching you and listening to you call them buttons it has stirred a far away memory in my mind that I have yet to put my finger on so the term is not a new one for me—I am guessing my paternal grandfather might have used the term buttons because he was quite old when I was very very young and I recall things about him less than my maternal grandparents who were born in 1907 and 1912—-papa was born in 1880 something I love green onions fresh from the garden with fried okra and sliced fresh tomatoes and soup beans and cornbread mmmmm goodl it seems the green onions when I was a kid were much sweeter than todays onions I remember breaking off one of the green pieces and using it as a straw that is how sweet they were cause it did not alter the taste of even milk drank through it (I was not even school age when I did that)
I call them onion sets, but I remember my mother calling them onion buttons, she also called the seed balls on the tops of her multiplying onions buttons.
I messed up with my other comment and put it in the wrong place.
Gaylia, you writing about your papa, brings back many memories for me and of my maternal granddaddy. He was born in 1888 and was 66 years old when I was born-1954. We lived beside of him and I spent every minute I could with him and his mule “Kate.” I could fill up a book of memories of my time spent with him. One memory I cherish is of the Christian man he was and how each morning when he would be feeding Kate, and his chickens he would be singing one of two songs, either Angel Band or A Beautiful Life. He would kneel down in hall of his barn or at a large above ground rock behind the barn and pray each morning. He lived his life by the words in the song of Beautiful Life. We have know landscaped around this rock in honor of him. He passed away in 1971 from a broken heart from losing grandmother, Kate, and something called at that time hardening of the arteries-similar to what we now know as dementia. He lived we us and we took care of him during this time, the last words I every heard him say and could understand was of him praying during the night and asking God to let him die. I was 17 when he died.
Randy, what beautiful and stirring memories of your granddaddy…thank you for sharing.
Randy, I too love Angel Band. Glad you had a granddaddy who was a godly man.
What a blessing you must have been to him. What a godly man he was and set the bar high for you. I was one out of ten in our family. I have been blessed all my life to see and hear my dad and neighbors out in the fields crying out to God for the lost souls in our community. Kids went to church barefooted and men thought nothing about wearing their clean overalls. You made my day reading your comment. My mom, dad and two brothers are long gone to heaven and today Moma would have been 103 years old. God bless you and keep living for God.
I grew up hearing them called sets.
had never heard the term buttons until I found your channel. I can understand why they would be called buttons, because of their size.