How to Grow Scallions in a Home Garden

Scallions, also known as green or spring onions, are a delicious addition to salads and soups, with their milder onion flavor. In fact scallions are simply young onions. Although there are some varieties that have been developed and marketed specifically for use as scallions, any onion variety that you choose to grow can be a scallion. You just need to follow the usual advice for growing onions, but harvest early, when the foliage reaches six to eight inches tall and the stems are thin and white toward the base. In other words, when they look like scallions!

Grow scallions from seed by planting onion seeds indoors eight to ten weeks before the last expected frost. Provide plenty of light. Harden the seedlings off and plant them into well-drained, rich soil in full sun in the garden after the last heavy frost. The seed can also be sown directly into well-worked garden soil in early spring. In areas with mild winters, scallions can be sown in fall and grown and harvested through the winter.

To keep your scallions growing well, make sure they receive regular water and remain free from weed competition. Their shallow roots mean you can’t let the soil dry out. Harvest them by pulling them up. Plan to use them soon after harvesting them. Standing them in water will make them keep about a week.

Image credit: By Idéalités - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0