Growing Onions from Discarded Pieces

White Onions

So two different onion scenarios. Last summer, I took the bottom of a white onion from the store, cut it from the onion, and planted it. The steps were very simple. I just let the cut piece dry out a little on the counter (couple of hours, maybe a day), then I stuck it cut side up in some dirt, with no dirt covering the onion.

It turned into this:

As you can see there are three different sprouts coming up. I should have split them apart, but I did not.

In the upper right corner you can see what will soon be a flower bud opening to make seeds. I didn't want that to happen; I wanted to see what I had grown.

So I dug it up.

Heh.


Here are the steps:

1. Here's what they looked like washed and with the tops cut off. I cut the bottoms off too. I will only eat the white part. No idea if that's the right thing to do or not, but that's the part you'd normally eat. It smells stronger than any onion I've never gotten in the store!

2. I cut the bottoms of the onions off (with a generous portion of the bulb material left. You can see the very large root systems here. I prepared three new pots with some dirt.

3. I placed the onion pieces in the pots and covered the roots, leaving the very top of the onion uncovered, and watered well.

So there you go. Three onions from one bottom piece. Yes, they were very small onions (and cooked down to a very small portion), but they were delicious! This time around I will be separating the shoots that come up so that the bulb growth can get larger.

Green Onions

The second onion-related project has to do with green onions. The store never sells them in small packages, so when you buy you're forced to buy in bulk, and you never use them all up in whatever recipe you follow.

Steps to growing your own green onions:

1. Secure extra onions.
2. Prepare a pot of soil, and water it well.
3. Since my pieces already had roots on it, I trimmed the green part down so that the tiny roots wouldn't have a lot to support. Then I poked each one carefully into the wet soil. If your pieces don't already have roots, I've read you can set them in glasses of water (which you frequently change), until they make roots.
4. I pressed the soil firmly around the new plants.
5. Wait.

I almost made another mess-up by leaving these in the direct sun. Now they are under my carport in shade and bright light. I'll leave them there until they show significant leaf growth, at which time they'll move into the garden spot.

So there you go. Waste not want not.