Learning How To Grow Spring Onions

A popular addition to many salads, stir fries and salsas, learning how to grow spring onions can introduce a new vegetable to both your garden and your palette. 

For gardeners and plant enthusiasts all over our great nation, the feeling that spring is just around the corner usually brings a welcome sense of excitement. While gardening has long been a well known Australian pastime, the events of the past year have signalled a rapid uptake in this hobby as we spend more time at home than ever before. Not only is gardening good for us, but it’s also encouraging a new generation to embrace growing our own food. 

Thus, if you’re one of the countless Aussies that are now the proud owners of a humble veggie patch, keeping it operational all year round usually boils down to knowing what – and when – to plant. When learning how to grow spring onions and other seasonal vegetables, the good news is that the time is now. 

A Guide On How To Grow Spring Onions 

Spring onions – otherwise known as shallots – might not be as colourful as tomatoes, as nutritious as zucchini or as hardy as pumpkins, but they can lay claim to being one of the few essential plants found in many vegetable gardens right across Australia. 

Spring onions belong to the onion family, and physically resemble thin leeks, with tiny bulbs and long, hollow green tops. Their popularity is often linked to the fact that while they bring the same crunch, they are milder in flavour than mature onions. Their versatility in cuisines around the world can’t be overstated, seeing as they can be eaten both raw and cooked. Just like herbs, they can be ‘snipped’ as and when you need them without consuming the entire plant. 

Unlike bulbing onions, spring onions can be sown, grown and harvested through a large portion of the year. If you’re sowing them outdoors, they’ll struggle to germinate in the very hottest and coldest months, but they can be sown indoors and planted out once the weather is milder like it is now. 

If you’re on a mission to try and grow spring onions in your garden, choose a spot that receives full sun. Providing that your soil is relatively healthy and isn’t too clay heavy, all you need to do is dig a 6mm hole, and sprinkle in your spring onion seeds. To get a continuous crop, sow the seeds every week for a few weeks and once the seeds have sprouted, mulch the area to keep the soil damp. Once your spring onions have sprouted ten to fourteen days later, you can thin them out so that the space between plants is roughly five centimetres apart, with the space between rows sitting at around fifteen centimetres. Your shallots should be ready to harvest in eight to ten weeks, and gardeners can either pull the whole plant out or snip the shoots as required. 

For those who are apartment dwellers or prefer to plant their spring onions in pots, the process is more or less the same as outlined above. Try not to let the potting mix get too damp, and try to feed them every few weeks to encourage new foliage growth. Although regarded as a very hardy plant that can tolerate minor frost and drought, plant spring onions in a sheltered position away from the wind to avoid new shoots breaking or bending. 

Giving Your Veggie Patch A Boost For Spring

Do the residents of your veggie patch – and yourself – a favour, and give them a head start by optimising your soil prior to planting. By adding natural plant food like Biotic Booster, this will help your garden to: 

• Provide essential nutrients and microbes 
• Act as a liquid fertiliser to unlock your soil’s potential 
• Drought proof your plants and lower water consumption
• Increase and speed up the germination process
• Assist in protecting your plants from pests and diseases 
• Provide an organic solution that’s safe to use around your herbs, fruit and veggies

If you’re ready to take the leap into improving the health of your plants while minimising the use of chemical based fertilisers, then it may be time to try a plant food and plant probiotics. Our Ultimate Garden Health Pack includes our Biotic Booster, FP-60 Probiotic Spray and RE-250 Soil Energiser. In each concentrated bottle, millions of natural bacterias are waiting to find a new home in your garden.

Here at Bioweed, we specialise in environmentally friendly gardening products, including herbicides, plant foods, garden probiotics, and natural alternatives to traditional gardening solutions. Should you have any questions about how to improve the sustainability of your garden or even what to plant in Spring, get in touch with us today.