Are your spring onions refusing to spring? Stuck with little tiny sad looking plants? What could be the problem? Let’s have a look and find out why your spring onions are not growing.
Spring Onions Not Growing
Ask many growers and they will tell you that spring onions are really easy to grow, I disagree. No matter what I try, year after year they never seem to get going, so what could it be?
Well, the thing I always turn to first with things like this is climate, it allows me to reassure myself that I am not a bad gardener and it’s just down to location.
To be fair to me, the weather is a common reason for plants failing to grow. I live up in the pennies in northern England and we get a lot of rain here.
Common Reasons
Poor Weather
As I said before one of the main reasons for the poor growth of spring onions is just good old bad weather. If it is really cold, wet and grey in spring and summer then spring onions can suffer.
Too Early
This is probably the second most common if indeed not the most common reason for the poor growth of spring onions, you simply put them outside too soon.
Cold weather, particularly when spring onions are young can be a real problem. If they get too cold their growth can be really stunted and they will never reach full maturity.
Poor Soil
Like most plants, spring onions won’t do too well in really poor soil. if the nutrition just isn’t there then they won’t grow and they will stay small.
Time
Sometimes it’s just a matter of time, spring onions can be one of the plants that look like they are doing absolutely nothing for weeks on end before suddenly doubling in size!
The Easiest Way To Grow Spring Onions
For me at least, I have found the most success with spring onions by sowing them in modules. For whatever reason, direct sowing just doesn’t work on my allotment.
Germination rates are really poor and then the onions that do come up never seem to fatten up and just resemble blades of grass.
With module sowing though I have had much more success.
You can single sow into modules or even multi sow and then grow them in the greenhouse before planting out when they are much more established.
Multi-sowing into modules is the easiest way and the way that I have found the most success.
Von
Saturday 8th of April 2023
Thanks .. I’ve been struggling with my spring onions. Sowed weeks ago in the greenhouse and still they look small and weak.. I will give them some liquid feed.. see if that perks them up..