The mystery of spring onions

[daylily]

Keeps escaping me. Any ideas, advice and growing routine please, do you manage to get a crop within a shorter time frame than onions or leeks?

[Novice Gardener]

Well the ony advice I can offer is don't look at em............ I've sowed two lots this year and both times they seemed to take an age to get from the looking like wispy grass stage to the looking like spring onions stage, then all of a sudden, right when I weren't expecting it.... hey presto, the wispy grass had been replaced by spring onions that I was proud of. It took, longer than it said on the packet - about 13 weeks all in all from sowing to harvesting

[Alice]

Hello Daylilly, spring onions are not a fast crop.
I start them early - about Feb indoors.
I fill 3 " pots with compost and lightly sprinkle with spring onions (White Lisbon).
I keep them in the pots and indoors until I can see the roots at the bottom of the pot by which time they have good, grassy looking topgrowth.
Then harden off and plant out by planting the whole pot, one next to another.
They do quite well.
While I'm waiting for the spring onions to be ready, I use the immature onions and red onions - roots and leaves.
They come much faster than spting onions.

[Demeter]

They do seem to take ages!

And then just as you think - wow, spring onions, at last, don't they look great, you pop indoors to get your camera, get distracted by your toddler falling over or something and the next time you remember that you have spring onions to harvest the b***rs are dying back on you, the foliage is getting crispy and all you end up eating is the bulb.... Or is that just me?

I've got some in an ex-tomato bucket in the greenhouse still at the wispy blades of grass stage - hopefully I will manage not to forget to harvest these ones.

[kentvegplot]

Only success I had was sowing a winter-hardy variety (will do it soon now), then it was useable at a sensible time!

[maximepaul]

mine are still wispy and i sowed them in march!!
still you never know lol would it be an idea to move them in the greenhouse now??

[womble]

Ahh spring onions!
The only time I've managed to grow some big specimens, is when some sneaked in and overwintered with some weeds, actual spring onions, in the spring!

I like Alices idea, do you think they would be OK in a unheated greenhouse?

[lynda66]

mine look exactly the same as the onions i planted at the same time, bulb just starting to swell, only difference is, the proper onions have a brown bottom, the spring onions are white, the leeks i have, which were planted a week or 2 later, look like spring onions crossed with grass. so i think the only difference is, the time they take to mature ..... which is basically ages.

[daylily]

Ah, feeling a lot better now.

The problem with them though starts at germination for me. Something like 4-10 plants from a packet of seed.

[zazen999]

Ah, feeling a lot better now.

The problem with them though starts at germination for me. Something like 4-10 plants from a packet of seed.

Hi
How are you sowing them?

[marthasnan]

We sowed spring onions ( White Lisbon winter) last year in October in a huge pot which we kept in the greenhouse over winter. Despite erratic watering we were rewarded with very early spring spring onions which were the envy of some of our fellow allotmenteers! Give it a go!

[FionaH]

Sowed mine in August I think and they still look like grass. To be honest have far too many in one trough and they are crowded. Still its the first thing I planted so bound to make loads of mistakes. What was the answer to keeping them in the greenhouse when it gets colder?

[womble]

Sounds like it should be ok. I've just put some in pots in the greenhouse today. Found a packet of white lisbon over wintering onions from somewhere.

In fact I answered my own question, if they are ok in with weeds over the winter, they should be ok in a cold greenhouse. Don't quote me in spring about that though

[daylily]

Hi
How are you sowing them?

I used to sow them as my other onions, then I reverted to spoiling them in crumbly compost and all sorts and then they never did much better. Not daring to compare to the onion seeds' performance.

[Cutecumber]

Put some compost in a few small modules - nothing too big. Throw a pinch of spring onion seed into each module. Cover the seeds with compost and give them a light water. Cover the tray with a clear plastic bag to reduce moisture loss and LEAVE THEM ALONE.

Seriously, the best you can do is ignore them until they germinate, at which point remove the plastic bag. Keep them just moist from then on - they don't like being wet.

Once a good proportion of the the little plantlets have popped up and are fully upright and strong, you can pot them up into a large pot - don't bother thinning them out, just plant the modules as they are. In late spring or early summer, plant them out in the ground, but otherwise a pot might be your best bet.

I could not grow spring onions until I adopted this method.