Alliums Beyond Onions: Growing Leeks, Scallions, and Garlic Scapes for Your Garden

If you grow one allium in your garden, it is probably the onion. Onions store well, anchor almost every savory dish, and are relatively straightforward to grow. But the allium family offers so much more than bulb onions. There are fast-harvest greens that come back again and again, a winter-hardy crop that tastes better after a hard freeze, and a bonus harvest that most gardeners completely miss.

This article covers three alliums that deserve a place in every home garden. They offer different flavors, different growing methods, and different harvest windows. Together they can keep you in fresh allium food for most of the year.

Scallions: The Fast, Repeat Harvest

Scallions, also called green onions or spring onions, are the easiest allium to grow and the fastest to harvest. They are young onions that are pulled before the bulb has a chance to swell. You eat the whole plant, from the white base to the green tips.

Scallions are different from bulb onions in both timing and purpose. Bulb onions need a long season and the right day length to form a storage bulb. Scallions are harvested young, before that process begins. They grow faster, tolerate a wider range of conditions, and can be planted again and again for a continuous supply.

Planting Scallions

Scallions are forgiving about how you start them. You can sow seed directly outdoors or start seeds indoors and transplant them later.

Direct seeding (spring): Sow scallion seeds outdoors as soon as you can work the soil, usually about four to six weeks before the last frost date. In Zone 7a, that means mid to late February. Scallion seeds germinate at cool temperatures and the young plants tolerate frost. They will overwinter if the cold is not extreme and push up fresh growth as soon as spring warms.

Transplanting: Start seeds indoors eight to ten weeks before your last frost date. Sow them shallowly in seed trays and keep the soil evenly moist. Transplant the seedlings outdoors when they are about the thickness of a pencil, usually six to eight weeks after sowing. Handle them gently. Their roots are fine and fragile, and rough transplanting slows them down.

Direct seeding (fall): You can also sow scallion seeds in late summer, about eight to ten weeks before your first fall frost. They will establish before winter and produce a spring harvest.

Regardless of how you start them, prepare the garden bed by mixing in compost and spacing the seeds or seedlings about one inch apart in rows that are twelve inches apart.

Growing Scallions

Scallions are low maintenance once they get going. They do not demand heavy feeding, but they do need consistent moisture to stay tender. Dry soil makes them tough and pungent instead of mild and sweet.

Keep the soil evenly moist with about one inch of water per week, either from rain or irrigation. Mulch around the plants to help retain moisture and suppress weeds. Scallions have shallow roots and do not compete well with weeds.

The varieties that matter most for scallions are those that do not readily bolt to seed. Good choices for home gardeners include:

• White Lisbon (quick, classic scallion)
• Emperor (long white stalk, slow to bolt)
• Evergreen White Bunching (true bunching onion, grows year-round in mild weather)
• Red Baron (a colorful option with mild flavor)

Harvesting Scallions

Scallions are ready to harvest about six to eight weeks after direct sowing, or eight to ten weeks after transplanting. You will know they are ready when the white stalk is about one quarter inch thick and the plant is about eight inches tall.

Pull individual plants as you need them, leaving the smaller ones to continue growing. Or, when the whole row is ready, harvest the entire crop at once by pulling everything. You can leave some plants in the ground to grow into small bulb onions if you prefer.

Succession Planting

The best way to keep scallions coming is to plant small amounts every two to three weeks through the growing season. This way you always have a row maturing and a row ready to harvest. In Zone 7a, make your last direct planting about six to eight weeks before your first fall frost.

A Bonus Trick

You can regrow scallions from the root ends of grocery store scallions. Place the white end, about an inch of root, in a small glass of water on a sunny windowsill. The roots will re-establish and new green leaves will shoot up within a few days. The regrown scallions will not produce bulbs, but the leaves are perfectly edible and great for garnishing or cooking.

Leeks: The Long Game

Leeks are the patient allium. They take months to mature, require a specific technique to get a long, clean white stalk, and are not the easiest crop to get right the first time. But they are also one of the most rewarding. A well-grown leek is tender, sweet, and mild. It holds up beautifully in soups, stews, and roasts. And unlike bulb onions, leeks thrive in cold weather. A hard freeze does not damage them. In fact, the cold brings out their sweetness.

Planting Leeks

Leeks are almost always started from seed, indoors, in late winter. In Zone 7a, start seeds indoors about ten weeks before your last frost date. For Louisville, that is late February to early March.

Sow the seeds in a seed tray or cell pack about half an inch deep. Keep the soil evenly moist and warm. Germination can take two to three weeks, so be patient. Do not rush the process or plant too early and your seedlings will get leggy before they are ready to go outside.

There are two planting windows for leeks in Zone 7a:

Spring planting: Transplant seedlings outdoors in early spring, as soon as the soil is workable. Space them six to eight inches apart in rows that are twelve to eighteen inches apart. This gives them the full growing season to mature. Expect harvest in mid to late summer.

Late summer planting: Sow seeds directly outdoors in late July or early August, or transplant young seedlings at that time. They establish quickly in the remaining warm weather and grow through fall and winter. Harvest in late fall and through the winter. This is often the better method for Zone 7a because the leeks mature in cool weather, which produces a better flavor.

Hilling: The Technique That Makes Leeks Worth Growing

Hilling is the most important step in growing good leeks. It is also the step that most beginners skip, and it is the reason their leeks look more like onions than leeks.

The white stalk of a leek is not a separate part of the plant. It is the leaf sheath that forms as soil is mounded up around the base of the plant. The longer the white portion, the more tender and mild the leek tastes. To get that long white stalk, you need to keep piling soil up around the base as the plant grows.

The simplest approach works well:

1. Planting: Dig a trench or hole about six inches deep. Drop the seedling in and cover only the bottom two inches with soil. Water well. The rest of the plant will grow up through the open space.

2. First hilling: Three to four weeks after transplanting, when the plant is well established, pull soil up from between the rows to cover the lower half of the plant.

3. Second hilling: Three to four weeks later, add another layer of soil, bringing the covered portion up to about two thirds of the plant height.

4. Final result: By the time the leek is mature, you should have at least six to eight inches of white stalk. That white portion is the most tender and mild part of the plant.

If you are lazy about hilling, you will still get a leek. It just will not be as long or as tender as it could be. If you commit to hilling, your effort shows in every bite.

Growing Leeks

Leeks are heavy feeders compared to scallions. They need good, rich soil with plenty of compost worked in before planting. A light application of balanced fertilizer at transplanting and again mid-season will keep them growing steadily.

Keep the soil moist but not waterlogged. Leeks do not tolerate drought, and dry soil makes them tough and fibrous. Mulch heavily to retain moisture and suppress weeds.

Leeks are remarkably pest resistant. Their main enemies are onion maggots, leek moths, and allium leaf miner. Row covers will protect against these pests if you are serious about growing leeks. Otherwise, rotate the leek bed each year and remove any debris at the end of the season to reduce pest pressure.

Good leek varieties for Zone 7a include:

• King Richard (early maturing, 95 days to maturity)
• Lincoln (late maturing, excellent storage, grows very long stalks)
• Musselburgh (cold hardy, old variety, reliable)
• American Giant (produces very large, thick stalks)

Harvesting Leeks

Leeks are ready about twelve to fourteen weeks after transplanting, when the stalk is about the thickness of a pencil or slightly thicker. In spring plantings, this means mid to late summer. In late summer plantings, it means late fall.

Leeks are extremely cold hardy. They can survive well below freezing and often do not need any protection at all in Zone 7a. If your winter is unusually cold, a heavy mulch layer will keep the ground from freezing solid, and you can pull leeks as needed throughout winter.

To harvest, loosen the soil around the base with a garden fork and pull the leek free. Shake off the dirt. The dark green tops are edible but very tough, so most cooks trim them back to the white and light green portion. Save the dark greens for stock.

Garlic Scapes: The Bonus Harvest

If you grow hardneck garlic, you get a free crop that most people ignore. Hardneck garlic produces a curly flower stem in late spring. That stem is called a scape. It tastes like mild, fresh garlic, and it is one of the most prized ingredients in a spring garden.

What Is a Garlic Scape?

Garlic scapes are the flower stalks of hardneck garlic plants. Hardneck varieties send up a stiff, curly stalk that eventually produces a flower head. The purpose of the scape is to create the flower, and the flower produces garlic bulbs, which are the small cloves that plant next year's crop.

But the scape itself is edible, and the sooner you harvest it, the better it tastes. A young scape is tender, sweet, and mildly garlicky. An old scape is tough, fibrous, and bitter. Timing matters.

When to Harvest Scapes

The ideal time to harvest is when the scape has formed a full loop or curl but has not yet started to straighten back out. If you see the scape making a full circle, harvest that plant. Wait too long and the scape toughens up.

In Zone 7a, this usually happens in late May or early June, depending on how warm the spring is.

To harvest, simply snap the scape off at its base or cut it with scissors. Hardneck garlic only produces one scape per plant, so you only need to check once per plant. Pull every scape you see. Leaving the scape on the plant reduces the size of the garlic bulb that year because the plant directs energy into flowering instead of bulbing.

Varieties to Grow

You only get scapes from hardneck garlic varieties. Softneck varieties do not produce scapes. The hardneck types that do well in Zone 7a include:

• Russian Red (reliable, productive, excellent scape)
• Romanian Red (flavorful bulb, generous scapes)
• Music (large bulbs, long scapes, popular heirloom)
• Georgian Credit (cold hardy, strong producer)

Cooking with Scapes

Garlic scapes are incredibly versatile. They can be used raw, cooked, pickled, or blended into a sauce. Because they are milder than garlic cloves, they work well in dishes where you want garlic flavor without the intensity.

Common uses include:

• Chop and use like scallions in salads, salsas, or as a garnish
• Saute with butter and pasta
• Blend into pesto with nuts, cheese, and olive oil
• Pickle for a tangy condiment
• Chop and freeze in ice cube trays with olive oil for quick flavor later

Scapes do not store well beyond a few days in the fridge. If you have a large harvest, the best approach is to use what you need right away and either freeze or pickle the rest.

How These Crops Fit Together

Here is the seasonal rhythm for all three crops in Zone 7a:

• February to March: Sow scallion seeds and leek seeds indoors. The scallions will be ready in early spring. The leeks need more time but will be there.
• April: Transplant leek seedlings outside. Plant the first succession of scallions.
• May to June: Harvest scallions as they mature. Watch the garlic scapes for the curl. Harvest them when ready.
• July to September: Succession plant scallions every two to three weeks. In late summer, plant leeks for a fall harvest.
• October to February: Pull fall-planted leeks as needed. They taste best after frost. Leave them in the ground until you need them.

Common Problems

All three of these crops share some common issues because they are all alliums. Here are the things to watch for:

Onion maggots: Small white larvae that tunnel into the base of the plant. Row covers are the most effective prevention. Crop rotation helps too. Do not plant alliums in the same bed two years in a row.

Thrips: Tiny insects that feed on the leaves, leaving silvery streaks. Inspect the leaves regularly. A strong spray of water can knock them off. Row covers prevent them entirely.

Bolting: Some alliums, especially scallions and leeks, will send up a flower stalk prematurely if they experience a cold snap followed by warm weather. This makes the stalks tougher and the flavor stronger. Plant early-maturing varieties and succession plant to reduce the risk.

Poor flavor: Underwatered or nutrient-starved alliums develop a stronger, sharper flavor. If you want mild, sweet alliums, keep the soil moist and fed.

The Bottom Line

Bulb onions are just the beginning of what the allium family has to offer. Scallions give you a fast, continuous supply of mild onion flavor. Leeks reward patience with tender, sweet stalks that last through winter. Garlic scapes turn a single spring window into a bonus harvest that most gardeners never take advantage of.

Each one has its own growing method. Each one fills a different place in the seasonal schedule. Together they cover most of the growing year with fresh allium flavor.

Start with whichever one sounds most interesting to you. All three are simpler to grow than they look on paper. The reward is bigger than the effort.

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— C. Steward 🧆