Early Spring Crop in the Garden: Green Onions
Early Spring Crop in the Vegetable Garden
When looking at growing an early spring crop have you ever thought about green onions in the garden area? Green onions are immature little onions that are just starting the bulbing stage in the garden. Once they reach this stage they start to swell up a little bit and we will harvest a few of these small onions at this size. Then, leave the majority of the spring onions in the garden to get bigger then harvest them to dry out for onion storage. Green onions are smaller onions that are great for cooking in soups, salads, or even stir-fried. They also have a great flavor profile when eaten raw right after harvesting from the vegetable garden area. The green onions have a dark green stem and white bulb roots that are completely edible. They are ready to harvest out of the garden when they are tender, young, and the bulb has started to slightly swell. Typically the tops reach around 6 to 8 inches tall by this bulbing stage. To maintain the care of green onions much like spring onions they need plenty of water. The recommended way to supply water to the plant roots is by using drip tape because it applies water directly at the roots in the vegetable garden. The green onions are the same as spring onions they just are not fully mature. Spring onions are fully mature and have an onion bulb at the end of the plant. The spring onions also have a more defined flavor profile than the green onions in the vegetable garden. Deciding between harvesting spring onions or green onions is your personal preference because both offer exceptional flavor, different cooking techniques, storage methods, and harvesting times out of the vegetable garden.
Growing Spring Crop: Green Onions
On this week's episode, Travis talks all about growing green onions withing in the vegetable garden. Travis currently has five rows of the Texas Legends onion and one row of the Red Creoles growing in the garden. These onion varieties are heavy feeders meaning they require a good amount of nutrients, fertilizer, and water supply to their plant roots. So we like to place the onions on a drip tape irrigation system to ensure they obtain all the direct water source to the plant roots and provide healthy producing plants. The drip tape system will also help conserve water and save you time in the vegetable garden. Depending on how much water the onion obtains is how sweet the onion will end up tasting. When maintaining the weeds in the onion area, Travis likes to use the Single Wheel Hoe to go in between the double rows quickly to cultivate and weed the garden area. Then, after a couple of weeks, he likes to take his Short Single Tine Cultivator to work closely to remove weeds and cultivate around the onion plants. When Travis planted the onions in the garden he planted them on about 4-inch spacing to ensure there was plenty of green onions planted in the vegetable garden. Then, Travis prefers to go in the garden and pull out every other green onion for eating and provide more room for the rest of the spring onions to grow bulbs in the ground throughout the season. After harvesting the green onions they are stored best when covered and placed in the refrigerator for up to one or two weeks. When deciding what to plant for an early spring crop look at growing green onions or spring onions to get a bountiful harvest throughout the growing season.