Growing Scallions: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Scallions are one of the easiest alliums to grow: direct-sown, no bulbing to manage, and forgiving enough to go in the ground before your last frost while other crops are still waiting on warmer soil. They’re also one of the densest plantings you can make in a small bed.
What to expect
Sow scallions directly about two weeks before your last frost — they tolerate cool soil well and don’t need the head start many transplants require. At 60 days to maturity and 9 plants per square foot, a single square can produce a real harvest, and cutting the green tops rather than pulling the whole plant lets some varieties regrow for a second round.
Common problems
Scallions are relatively low-trouble, but like other alliums they inhibit nitrogen-fixing bacteria on the roots of beans and peas, so problems usually trace back to bed placement rather than the plant itself. Overwintered plantings can bolt in spring once they’ve been through a cold spell — expect that as a natural end point rather than a problem to fix.
Where this fits in your garden
Scallions and carrots are a classic pairing — onion scent deters carrot rust fly while carrot scent deters onion fly — and scallions interplant well with lettuce thanks to non-competing root depths; see the full companion guide for scallion. At 9 per square foot, scallions are dense enough in the Garden Designer to tuck into narrow gaps around larger, slower crops rather than needing dedicated bed space.
Companion planting guide for Scallion (Green Onion) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-10. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Direct sow — Direct-sow outside — Scallion (Green Onion) doesn't transplant well, or doesn't need the extra time indoors.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
Spacing: 9 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing).
Varieties worth considering
- Evergreen Hardy White — Johnny's Selected Seeds describes this open-pollinated bunching onion as their most winter-hardy scallion variety, with little to no bulbing tendency and the ability to survive winter in well-drained soil — a good pick if you want to leave a planting in the ground into cold weather rather than harvesting it all at once. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety — we haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy scallion (green onion) seeds
Some links on this page go to retailers we may eventually earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews — see the sources cited on each item.
See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing scallion (green onion)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video — results vary and aren't vetted by us)