Tag Archives: scallion

Newbie SOS: 80 days to market, what’s first?

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Courtesy of Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon SK

At this time of year, my green thumb gets double duty – I’m not only still growing inside, I’m also responding to lots of messages that start out like this: Help! Only 80 days to my first market. What do I do about….

So I’ll be doing some posts that provide a sampling of recent questions, because some of them may be on your mind, too. Maybe like, what’s first?

With 80 days to market, what is the one thing I need to get done this week? So much to do so little time. If I could have something ready early (right!) I can market it online, or possibly at the unofficial market in my local mall parking one day a week. But what is first?

You need to get some soil worked up, as soon as you can, and plant onion sets and garlic. If you haven’t ordered seed, then get your order secured as soon as possible.

SPIN photo farm stand Gail

Scallions, or green onions, are a good early SPIN crop because they command premium pricing, which justifies the high cost of sets.  Urban growers with the micro climate advantage can often be first at market with them. 

What Does Commercial Grade Mean?

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Courtesy of Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon, SK                                  It’s not that hard to grow food. It’s quite different to grow it at commercial grade. But there are different levels of commercial grade. Here’s how I have always thought about it. My competition is not other farmer’s at market. It’s Whole Foods. So my produce has to have eye appeal. Appearance and presentation are as important to quality as taste and freshness. That’s why practicing SPIN’s post-harvesting protocols are so important. For instance, the protocol for scallions is to remove the old set ” jacket.” Soak the onions in a bin of cold water, root side down, for a couple of hours, and then strip off the jacket. I also trim off the root end. It’s a little more work, but you’ll more than cover your time that by being able to charge, and get Whole Foods level prices.

spin-photo-crop-production-guide-scallion-cleaned

Planting Scallion Sets

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Courtesy of Wally S., Wally’s Urban Market Garden, Saskatoon, SK

The best way that I know to plant scallion sets is one by one, not laying them down. Yes, it is one of the most tedious chores, but the reward is early onion bunches at market, and for later on in the season. Scallion from seed is something I am trying this year, but it will be intended for mid and late summer, and fall production. So for consistent spring to fall scallion production, it is a good idea to use sets and seed.

By planting at the intensity of 1 ” in-row, that would make for around 300 sets per 25 foot row,and around 1200 sets per bed. You should be able to plant at least 20 sets per minute. At that work rate you should be able to plant your SPIN bed in about an hour.

Make sure to mark the rows with a Earthway wheel hoe or seeder. I usually use a combination of straddling a bed, and then kneeling, on one knee, beside a bed, on the walkway. Consider using short beds, ones 12 feet long or less. These types of beds will be less daunting for manual work like this. I use 12 foot beds for a lot of my scallion production.

I finished planting around 150 lbs. of sets over the last several weeks, and am definitely
getting tired of this sort of work! I expect to have scallion for sale by the end of May, and then for the entire summer and into the fall. The next fun job I will be ( not ) looking forward to is the planting of around 40 plug trays of cippolini onions.