Crop type: Salad Onions
Allium cepa ‘Apache’ PBR
Common name: Salad onion ‘Apache’
Crop slug: salad-onions
This Allotment Pro editorial draft summarises the cited RHS cultivar profile and its linked crop guidance. Check the sources and adjust cultivation decisions for local conditions.RHS cultivar profile
1 - Overview
‘Apache’ is a fast-maturing salad onion with distinctive deep-purple skin, dark-green leaves, a mild flavour and a crisp texture. It can be ready to harvest within six weeks of sowing, making it a useful colourful contrast to white-stemmed salad onions in both the garden and kitchen.
The cultivar is suitable for open ground or containers. Harvest while the bases remain young and slim so their purple colouring, tenderness and mildness are at their best.
2 - Size
- Ultimate height
- 0.1–0.5 metres
- Ultimate spread
- 0.1–0.5 metres
- Time to ultimate size
- One year
- Habit
- Clump forming
This compact annual crop suits close rows and container sowings. Its practical spread is limited by harvesting at the slender salad-onion stage rather than allowing mature storage bulbs to form.
3 - Growing conditions
- Suitable soils
- Chalk, clay, loam or sand
- Moisture
- Moist but well drained in cultivation; profile field states well drained
- Soil pH
- Alkaline or neutral
Use fertile soil that retains enough moisture for quick, crisp growth while draining freely. Water during dry spells, especially in containers, and avoid saturated ground that can encourage root and bulb diseases.
4 - Position and hardiness
- Light
- Full sun
- Aspect
- South- or west-facing
- Exposure
- Sheltered
- Hardiness
- H3 — best suited to coastal and relatively mild parts of the UK
Full sun supports strong purple skin colour and sturdy dark-green leaves. A sheltered site is particularly useful for the earliest sowings and for maintaining uninterrupted fast growth.
5 - Colour and seasonal interest
| Season | Flowers | Foliage | Edible bases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | — | Dark green | Deep purple and white |
| Summer | — | Dark green | Deep purple and white |
| Autumn | — | Dark green | Deep purple and white |
| Winter | — | — | — |
The defining edible crop has narrow lower stems wrapped in deep-purple skin, often with a paler interior, beneath upright dark-green leaves. It is grown for this vivid young harvest rather than for flowers or mature round bulbs.
6 - Botanical details
- Family
- Amaryllidaceae
- Native to Great Britain and Ireland
- No
- Foliage
- Deciduous
- Habit
- Clump forming
- Name status
- Accepted
- Plant Breeders’ Rights
- Yes
- RHS recognition
- Award of Garden Merit
- Other common name
- Spring onion ‘Deep Purple’
- Synonym
- Allium cepa ‘Deep Purple’
Genus
Allium includes bulbous herbaceous perennials with a strong onion or garlic scent. They commonly have linear, strap-shaped or cylindrical basal leaves and star- or bell-shaped flowers in an umbel on a leafless stem.
7 - How to grow
Cultivation
Grow in fertile, moist but well-drained soil in full sun on a sheltered site. Sow thinly from late winter to midsummer at three-week intervals, about 0.6cm deep in drills 15cm apart. Thinning is not required. Keep seedlings watered and weed-free, then begin pulling the fast crop from about six weeks after sowing.
Propagation
Propagate from seed.
Suggested locations
- Patio container
- Allotment or kitchen garden
- Sheltered edible border
Pruning
No pruning is required. Harvest plants whole while the purple bases remain narrow and crisp.
Pests
Generally pest-free, although birds may disturb seedlings. Protect new sowings where birds are active and firm loosened plants back into the soil.
Diseases
May be susceptible to onion white rot and onion downy mildew. Rotate allium crops, use clean well-drained ground and avoid overcrowding.