Bunching Onion
Guardsman is the earliest bunching onion you can grow, ready to harvest in just 50 days from transplants. This open-pollinated hybrid between Welsh onion (Allium fistulosum) and common onion (Allium cepa) delivers compact plants packed into hardiness zones 3 through 9, making it both incredibly reliable and surprisingly cold-hardy. Direct the plant into early spring sowings for summer harvest, or plant in midsummer to overwinter for spring crops. Its frost-hardy nature and ability to survive winter in well-drained soil set it apart from less resilient bunching varieties.
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Moderate
3-9
?in H x ?in W
Annual
Moderate
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Speed matters when you're hungry for fresh scallions, and Guardsman delivers faster than nearly any other bunching onion available. The combination of Welsh onion hardiness with common onion vigor gives you a plant that germinates reliably between 50 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit and can shrug off cold snaps that would kill tender varieties. Gardeners who succession-plant from early spring through August get continuous harvests from the same plot, turning one patch into months of ready-to-use scallions.
Guardsman works as a fresh scallion for raw applications, sliced into salads and garnishes where its tender white and light green portions add mild onion flavor without harshness. The blanched white stems develop especially thick when you use the Negi-style planting technique detailed in catalog sources, burying seedlings deep to encourage elongated white shanks favored in Asian cuisine. Young plants can be harvested as baby scallions or allowed to mature into thicker, more substantial bunching onions depending on your timing and appetite.
Sow 6 to 8 seeds per cell in 72-cell trays at the same time you would seed bulbing onions for transplant. Maintain soil temperature between 50 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit for reliable germination. Seedling clusters are ready to transplant outdoors once established.
Transplant seedling clusters 6 to 8 inches apart in rows spaced 18 inches apart for standard spacing. For Negi-style scallions with thicker blanched portions, wait until seedlings reach 8 to 18 inches tall and pencil thickness, then transplant outdoors 6 inches apart into rows 24 inches apart in holes dibbled approximately 6 inches deep. Only 1 to 2 inches of leaf should extend above the soil surface. Do not firm the soil; allow irrigation or rain to fill holes around the transplants.
Seed can be sown directly in early spring for summer use, or in July or August for fall and spring harvests.
Loosen plants with a fork or underminer and gather by hand. Wash harvested scallions and hydrocool them, then hold at near freezing until ready to use. For continuous harvests, begin cutting outer leaves once plants establish, or pull entire plants at maturity around 50 days from transplanting depending on your desired size.
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