If you like growing vegetables from seed, make sure to plant some easy-to-grow scallions, also known as green onions. These tasty treats are packed with flavor and go with practically everything – chop or cut them with scissors and toss onto salads, sandwiches, soups, burritos, tacos, stir fries and so much more. Scallions are mild in taste, so you won't cry while cutting them. The most intense flavor comes from the white part closer to the stem, but the entire green onion is edible and can be eaten raw or cooked.
Of course, being chileheads, one of our favorite uses of green onions is to chop and put into spicy salsa recipes! We love growing green bunching onions as much as we love growing peppers.
Green Onions are Great for Cool Season Growing
The bonus is that you can grow green onions outside MUCH earlier than peppers, tomatoes and other veggies. You can even enjoy green onions year-round if you give them a little cover in the winter months with a cold frame or small garden bed hoop house.
You can also grow tuck bunching onions into your garden wherever you have a little room as they don't take up much space either. We grow them over the fall/winter/spring months along with our other cool weather veggies.
We like to keep green onions growing all the time, and snip off the greens to use whenever needed all year-round, but you can also pull up the entire scallion to use in recipes or as a topping. While these green onions grow in cool weather, but also do well in the summer months, too!
Green Onion Seeds for Sale
White Lisbon Bunching Onion is a hardy, mild-flavored, fast-growing onion that does not form a bulb. They can grow 12" long with white stalks and green tops. This variety is very dependable because it thrives in a wide range of soils, is heat and cold tolerant, and can be sown successively throughout the season. Bunching onions can be harvested at a number of stages that include the early green shoots, or the mature, white flesh of the lower stem.
How to Grow Bunching Onions from Seed
You can sow these green onion seeds directly into the garden soil after the last frost. We like to plant them in patches all around our garden – they fit nicely between rows of veggies, or along borders of beds.
Plant the bunching onion seeds 1/4" deep and 1" apart. Firm the soil lightly and keep it evenly moist. Sometimes we like to put a clear plastic cover or a half of a milk jug over the bunching onion seeds to get them to germinate faster in the early spring – it keeps the moisture in and they can sprout faster with the extra warmth.
Bunching onion seeds will germinate in 7-14 days.
Later thin to 3" apart when seedlings are 1- 2" high.
It's also good to cut off the tops when they get to be about 3-4" tall, this will encourage them to put more energy into building good roots. Use the trimmings on tacos, salads, or whatever you're making.
Gently apply a layer of mulch to keep weeds down and the soil moist.
You can harvest the bunching onions when plants reach 10-12" tall, while the stalks are still white at the bottom and fairly thin.
Harvesting Green Onions
We like to cut the green tops off and then chop up and sprinkle in soups, stir-fries, and sandwich fillings. By just cutting the green onion tops, the scallions will grow more in their place if you don't pull up the entire bunching onion. We like to do a mix of both, taking a couple full onions, and then trimming the tops off others to keep a perpetual green onion patch growing.
Our organic green onion seeds are the easiest-to-grow variety so you're sure to have good success and enjoy fresh scallions with any meal!
Happy growing!
