Vegetable Seeds Heritage Open-pollinated

Onion Spring White Lisbon

Heritage Portuguese spring onion - the British kitchen-garden standard for over 200 years

£1.80approx. 500 seeds

The Portuguese heritage spring onion that has been the British standard for two centuries - fast-growing, cold-hardy, with overwintering sowings providing the year's earliest fresh greens.

Sowing months
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Harvest months
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Height
30cm
Spread
2-3cm
Spacing
2-3cm
Position
Full sun, light shade tolerated.
Soil
Fertile, well-drained, moisture-retentive.
Grow guide
How to grow Onion Spring White Lisbon
Read the full guide →
About this variety

The Portuguese spring onion that has been a British kitchen garden standard for over two hundred years. Clean slim white stems with deep green tops, bright and mildly pungent with a proper snap that supermarket spring onions have usually lost by the time they reach a shelf.

It grows fast — eight to twelve weeks from sowing, quicker than any other onion. And it is unusually hardy, which is where the name comes from: sown in late summer, plants stand through the winter and give you the earliest fresh onions of the year in March, when almost nothing else is ready.

Sow short rows every fortnight from March to September and you can have them on the plate for ten months of the twelve. Sowing the packet in one go gives you three hundred spring onions in the same fortnight, which is not useful to anyone.

Plant alongside

Onion Spring White Lisbon pairs beautifully with these kitchen garden companions