Saving Green Onions Seeds - Garden Quickie Episode 3

Green onions. There's a million ways to grow them but one of the easiest ways to get a lot of green onions fast is to grow them from seed. Did you know that you can skip buying green onion seeds at the store every spring and just harvest them from your own garden? It's not at all hard. Let me show you how. I'm Jeff from the Ripe Tomato Farms. Welcome to another episode of Garden Quickie where we tackle your garden's most pressing issues in two minutes or less. And today we're focusing on the green onion seeds. More specifically how to grow, flower, and harvest your own seeds giving you one more path to unlimited green onions. Green onions, also known as scallions, are a mild allium variant grown for their delicious green stalks. Because they're a relatively fast grower and we only harvest the foliage rather than a resource expensive fruiting body, they are an ideal candidate for growing from seed. However even though they're really easy to grow and they readily go to flower for us, green onions are still a biennial crop meaning they only seed in their second year. So if you're planning on harvesting a bunch of green onion seeds for sale or for future crops, plan on doing so a year in advance. Okay timing aside, green onions will readily flower in their second year. They do this by sending up a huge flower stalk around mid-spring. All alliums have what we call perfect flowers meaning they have both male parts or stamens and female parts or pistils. However these guys cannot self-pollinate. Because of this multiple flowering stalks are usually necessary as our pollinating insects such as bees. And further to that it is advisable to grow your green onions outdoors in the spring and summer. These are the things that are going to contribute to the most viable seed. Once pollinated, the flower stalks will slowly turn brown over the course of early summer. Leave them on the plant as long as possible. Onion seeds are heavy and they won't fly away in the wind so don't worry about that. Once the flower head really turns brown and dries out you can see the black seeds formed in their own little individual packets. Now you can go ahead and collect the heads from the mother plant. Shake the seeds into an envelope deli cup or similar container and store in a cool dry place. I've had green onion seeds germinate at least six years after harvesting so the seeds can last a fair amount of time. You're going to end up with a lot of them so pass the seeds along to a family member or someone that's just getting into gardening. Green onions are a great first time crop for beginners and you'll have more than enough to share. Thanks for watching guys and hey if garden quickies are your thing be sure to click on this playlist here as we explore and solve more growing issues in two minutes or less.