Scallions, spring onions1, or salad onions are all called green onions. Green onions are very easy to plant, care or harvest. And, in this article, we are going to have a life story of growing green onions while especially focusing on how to harvest green onions.
Green onions are so versatile that you can add them to salads, omelets, meats, soups, and stews, and they will enhance the colour and flavour of the dish while providing a finishing touch.
1. Overview of Green Onions
The scientific or botanical name of green onions is Allium fistulosum, which means green onions belong to the Allium family of vegetables, which also includes garlic, leak, and onions.
Many and most of the commercial spring onions or scallions are immature plants of the common onions(Allium cepa). Green onions are rich in antioxidants which help reduce inflammation in the body and also help in lowering the sugar level.
2. Types of Green Onions

There are many types of green onions, and their basis of categorization is ‘different flavours and colours.’
2.1 Spring Onions
They have larger white bulbs, but the leaves are slender and thinner and have a sweet, savoury taste.
2.2 Chives
Chives have beautiful purplish flowers that are edible, too, while having a mild aroma and overpowering crunchy texture; these are very nutritious.
2.3 Leeks
These are very large, and harvested onions do not have any bulbs or cloves. Sweeter than any other onions harvested.
2.4 Classic Green Onions
Classic green onions are similar to other store-bought green onion scallions but vary from spring onions. These consist of smaller white onion bulbs with green tops, which taste stronger than the green leaves of regular green onion scallions do.
2.5 Tokyo Negi
They do not have white bulbs. Rather, they have a white stalk with long leaves, which are even sweeter than onion bulbs, the classic green onions.

2.6 Red Beard
This variety comes from Kazakhstan and China, is milder, and can be used raw, whether in cooking or eating.
2.7 Calcot
Calcot is typically a variety of regular onions from Spain with larger leaves than other types of onions. These are not a way to go as raw.
2.8 Chinese Onions
These onions are very similar to common green onions and are prevalent in China, Japan, Vietnam, and North America. These are not very well known in India; instead, they are used in many dishes and desserts in China.
3. When to Plant Green Onions
The spring onions can be sown in any type of environment with perennial season cropping, but for the best results, try to sow or plant them during the early to mid-spring season so that harvesting can be possible during the summers.
You can also plant them in late winter and follow up with the harvest time in early spring or start harvesting the next year-round in early winter.
4. What Should be the Environment

You can plant green onions either in containers, raised beds, or at any sunny spot in your garden but make sure that weeds could keep away from them to avoid the competition for soil moisture because spring onions need well-drained soil to grow properly.
5. Pest Control
While green onion plants are easy to deal with, they are still a big issue that generally haunts our sweet plants. That big issue is called slugs, which we can usually see in any garden. These slugs can initiate some diseases in onion greens, like botrytis leaf blight, purple blotch, and downy mildew, which can rot and spoil the dark green leaves of onion green plants’ condition.
To deal with it, we have to go through the crop rotation and maintenance of good spacing so that, the plant could feel alive.
6. What is Needed to Care for the Plant
Green onions are undoubtedly easy to plant and grow but still, to grow green onions that need some of the basic requirements as nourishment.

6.1 Light
A sunny light site and a garden bed is perfect for their growth. Yeah, they can grow with a light shade garden, but at least need 6 to 7 hours of continuous presence of direct light or full sun.
6.2 Soil Support
The soil should be well-drained and feature-rich sandy loam to make the shallow roots of the plant fully mature and capable of growing.
Add organic matter or compost to enhance the richness of the soil up to 6 to half inches to 7 inches deep down to provide rooted nourishment and new growth.
6.3 Temperature
As you grow green onions, they need well-drained soil to grow, so temperature and humidity balance should be there.
The temperature would be okay if it is around 44 degrees like warmer is better with the humid conditions to remain the soil moist for up to a week for better and sharp growth.
6.4 Water
Green onions and onion plants need to have regular watering because they have a shallow root system, so whenever you see growing green onions or onion plants’ soil getting dried out, follow up with rainfall.
Do not leave them in the wet soil, they will rot and catch diseases. Just drainage should be good and well-maintained.
6.5 Fertilizer
Provide a balanced manure and fertilizer 2dose to your plants for their real sharp growth.

7. How to Harvest Green Onions: 2 Important Methods
If you have already learned how to grow green onions, then you are on the way to having a long harvest season for your next crop just because of a few patches of plants.
There are mainly 2 techniques or ways to harvest green onions. And, here is the magic begins.
7.1 By Leaf/Stem

You can call the slender white stem with a long dark green top part a leaf or stem. By growing medium leaf, you can harvest according to 2 ways based on the flavour you want.
- If you want a sweet and mild onion flavor for the salad or to garnish the recipe then, go for harvesting the baby crop when the plant is just 6 to 7 inches tall. It will not restrict growth rather, it will help to enhance the overall factors to boost the strength of the plant to grow further till the season is out.
- If your green onion plants have grown enough, then just cut their leaves to use in your kitchen and leave them to grow further for the next sooner harvesting process. This process is mainly followed because when these leaves are grown-ups, they add up the taste, colour and flavour to the recipes.
7.2 By Whole Plant

If you want a whole plant, including leaves and the bigger bulb stalk then use the trowel to loosen the outer leaves in the soil so that it can come and gently pull out easily without hurting the soil atmosphere.
Do not try to hurt the plant by tugging it directly because it can damage the whole stem.
Final Words
As we have discussed, green onions can be cooked easily, and we prefer eating them without any cooking. They can enhance any recipe, like soup, noodles, salad, dips, stir-fries, and curry, without changing the original taste and flavour while showing off their own richness. Whenever you feel like having a veggie garden, you make sure to add green onion plants because of their versatile and easy growth.
- Thompson, Leslie, et al. “Flavonol content and composition of spring onions grown hydroponically or in potting soil.” Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 18.7 (2005): 635-645. ↩︎
- Hignett, Travis P., ed. Fertilizer manual. Vol. 15. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013. ↩︎
Last Updated on by Namrata