All About Growing Green Onions
Today we’re talking about growing green onions! Green onions are a great choice for an easy and useful crop in your garden. They grow wonderfully in traditional gardens, but they also do great in containers and even windowsill gardens. So if space is a concern, green onions can be a great option.
I love that they are biennial plants, meaning they take two full years to complete their lifecycle. I can plant them in very early spring, and they’ll come back the next spring (in zone 7, that is) without me doing much of anything. So let’s talk about growing them.
Planting, light, & soil
Another reason I love green onions for beginners is that they make great candidates for direct sowing. That just means you plant them directly into the soil. You don’t need to start them indoors super early in the season and then transplant them.
The plant pictured below started as a seed in March 2024. This picture was taken in October 2024. While the plant died back a bit in the summer due to extreme heat, it rebounded wonderfully in September once the temperatures began dropping a bit.
Green onions like full sun—so about 6 to 8 hours a day. They are happiest in a light, well-draining, nutrient-rich soil. I have my raised beds amended with plenty of leaf compost, and the plants have been thriving!
Caring for & digging up in early spring
Because green onions are biennial plants, that means they stay in the ground over the winter. They might look a little worse for the wear in the spring, though. So I just trim the dry, browning tops off of mine.
You don’t have to dig up your plants and split them in early spring, but you can. Green onions will multiply, so digging them up and splitting them will give you more plants! I dug up both of my green onions to see how many new plants I could get this spring.
Splitting green onion plants
To split my plants, I used my hori-hori knife to slice the green onions apart. I tried to make sure each section I cut off had roots attached to it. I ended up with eight different plants that I planted in a row. From two plants to eight plants…I love green onions!!
Rooting green onion cuttings
You can also root green onions in water. Just make sure that only the bottom of the cutting is in water. Once it develops roots, go ahead and plant it in your garden. Yes, it’s that easy 🙂
Saving seeds
When your green onions are nearing the end of their lifecycle, they will shoot up thick stalks with a poofy little flower on top. Wait for the flower to brown and die off. Each of the little petals will turn into a seed pod with several seeds. Save those seeds in a cool, dark place for the next growing season 🙂 For a full tutorial on this process, see my post on saving green onion seeds.
