Organic Onion Salad Ishikura

Salad Onion: Ishikura
Allium fistulosum
Approximately 250 seeds per g
These small onions are selected and bred to be harvested young, when the plants are between 15 and 25 cm tall. Some varieties produce small bulbs
while most modern varieties rarely bulb and form a slim uniform plant, white at the root end and green at the leaf. Salad onions are also known as spring
onions or scallions. They are easy to grow but do take a surprisingly long time, around 12 weeks. Most varieties are Spring sown but there are also winter hardy types.

Ishikura is a Japanese bunching onion. It does not bulb but forms long, thick white stems which are both tasty and quite frost-hardy. It is usually picked when it is about 1 cm across but can grow as large as a leek and remains tender even when that size. In fact, you can earth them up like leeks to get a longer white shank if required.

How to Grow:
Grow in the allium section of your rotation.
Sow into well prepared soil directly into the growing site from February until July. Sow in drills 1 cm deep and allow 25 cms between the rows.
Sow quite thinly to avoid the need to thin out later and keep sowing successionally throughout the season at about three week intervals.
Pests and diseases:
Although Spring onions can suffer from the same pests and diseases as other onions like white rot, onion fly and onion eelworm as they are less prone
as they are in the ground for a shorter amount of time.
How to cook:
Cut the root off with a sharp knife and trim the tops and outer leaves. Salad onions have a milder flavour than larger types.
Chop into salads or use whole as crudites, spring onions are also great on the top of a Thai curry and other eastern dishes.
Onions are high in vitamin A and C and eating raw spring onions is the best way to keep that goodness intact.