PlantSowGrow
How to grow Pickling Onion (Paris Silverskin)
Allium cepa
🥕 Vegetable
🌱 Grown each year
Tiny, pearly-white onions for pickling and cocktail sticks. Sown thickly, they stay small without thinning.
At a glance: Sow early April to late May, harvest from mid June.
When to sow, plant and harvest
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Sow outdoors
Harvest
Timed for a typical UK garden (last frost mid-April). The app uses your own town's frost dates.
Growing Pickling Onion (Paris Silverskin): what it needs
- Light
- Full sun · 6+ hours a day
- Watering
- Water regularly in dry weather
- Soil
- Fertile, well-drained soil
- Spacing
- Sow thickly in a 15 cm-wide band; do not thin
- In pots
- Grows well in containers
- Feeding
- A general feed before sowing or planting
- Harvest
- About 90 days from sowing
- Hardiness
- USDA zones 3–9
- Difficulty
- Easy
Step by step
- Early April – late May · 2 weeks before the last spring frost
Sow Seeds Outdoors
Sow thinly in drills where they are to grow.
- 10–21 days after “Sow Seeds Outdoors” · Mid April – late April
Check Germination
Seedlings should appear in 10–21 days. If sown outdoors, thin to Sow thickly in a 15 cm-wide band; do not thin apart when big enough to handle.
- 69–90 days after “Check Germination” · Mid June – early July
Start Harvesting
Lift when the tops yellow and the bulbs are marble-sized.
- 21–51 days after “Start Harvesting” · Early July – early August
Finish and Clear
Dry for a few days, then peel and pickle.
More vegetables to grow
Photo: Jules Morgan from Montreal, Canada / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
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