I like to do things just because I like to do them. Can I go to the store and buy Maple Syrup? Yes. Of course I can. I'm not an idiot you know. Well, sometimes I am actually, but not in this particular instance. The time I tried to teach myself taxidermy? That's more of an "idiot" instance.
The reason I do so many things myself is because I'm curious. I like to do things on my own because I think it's fun. A lot of times it saves me money, occasionally it saves me time, but it always, always is entertaining.
The odd time I come across something that's just too incredible to ignore.
This ... is one such time.
A few weeks ago, The Art of Doing Stuff reader Kim Merry, emailed me asking if I'd heard of growing green onions from the green onion roots you cut off. After sitting calmly to lower my blood pressure, and taking a good stiff drink to get rid of my trembling hands, I emailed Kim back. NO! NO I HAD NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING!!!
I thanked Kim for letting me know about this process and immediately started Googling. From what I read it appeared as though myself and the crazy guy in town with bells on his shoes were the only ones not growing green onions from the onion stumps.
According to the Internet, to grow beautiful green onions all you have to do is stick the roots in water and watch em grow! Overnight practically!
At this point in my research I was so excited I almost had to put in a piddle pad next to my computer. It was *that* exciting. Since I always think I'm out of green onions and therefore buy them every single time I'm at the grocery store, I had an entire crisper full of green onions to experiment with.
I did a bit more research and found you could do the same thing using soil. Soil, being less exciting than growing something with just air and water only elevated me to a state of "Yay". As opposed to the near stroke-like condition I was in up until that point.
So I rolled up my sleeves (they were short sleeves so I looked kind of like the Fonz) and got to work. Cutting onions, taking pictures and documenting the whole experiment for 3 weeks. Here's how it went.
The Great Great Onion Experiment
Grab a bunch of Green Onions
Chop off the roots, leaving a bit of the white part. I left varying sizes of white from a tiny amount to a large amount.
Stick the roots in a jar of water.
Stick them on a sunny windowsill. I had quite a struggle keeping the onions standing upright. I had to use tweezers to get them in the jar and lean them against the side to stand up. Then they fell down.
Plant a few green onion stumps in soil. Just stick em in and leave them.
Would you like to save this stuff?
We'll email you this post, so you can refer to it later.
According to most sites these will turn into lush, green onions in a matter of days!
3 weeks pass.
Behold the Great Green Onion Experiment Results.
I ended up transferring the green onions in the jar into this contraption. After 4 days or so the green onions in the water rotted to a disgusting, putrid mess.
So I tried a glass filled with water with a glass flower frog to hold the onions on top. This way the onions would stay upright and not too much of the base would get soaked. Brilliant, right? Didn't work. Clearly.
The green onions in the soil did much better. The stumps actually produced green onions. (just the green part .. the white part doesn't grow)
However, having said that, for 3 weeks of watering etc., and a kind of mediocre result I'm gonna have to call this experiment a fail.
Although technically the technique works ... for me ... it just ain't worth it.
It didn't produce results worthy of a piddle pad. Which is what I was hoping for.
Feel free to give it a shot. But if after 3 weeks this is all I ended up with, I think I'll continue to spend the $0.69 and buy my green onions.
So no more green onion growing for me. I'll leave the vegetable growing for the front yard. Funny. I guess it turns out the guy with bells on his shoes is smarter than he looks.
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Jake
That's my boy, with bells on. :)
Karen
LOL! ~ karen
Libby
Yes, we tried this too, and ended up with several hundred gnats, all over the house.
brie
I take a narrow glass jar and fill it with water. I get some organic green onions at the store, and when I get home, I cut the rubber bands and just place them in the water. I can snip of what I want to use, then they re-grow. If I want the white part I just buy them though.
Geri
Now THAT seems like a good idea!
Eliesa
As someone on her way out to plant her veggie garden today, I am so glad you posted this - and all the comments that have been posted are great too! Going to try to plant some directly in the garden (not in water first) and see how they grow. I don't use them much, so it won't matter if I don't get a big return right away.
Arianne
We grew green onions in our vegi patch last year and let me tell you... they grew like wildfire. With one seed packet we had enough green onions to feed the who ferkin neighborhood. Grab a $.99 seed packet, plant about 1/4 of the seeds in a row in your new front yard vegi garden, watch 'em grow and then reseed with another 1/4 of the packet in a month, then again in a month (you get the drift). We just snipped the onions off at soil level and the about half the time the 'old' roots grew new plants. nifty thrifty.
Kelly Evans
So someone may have already commented on success but Im too lazy to read through alllll the comments. So I do this all the time with great success... I love it! First thing I thought when you were cutting the onions was "Oh dear, that is never going to work." I only ever cut as much off to where the green starts to turn white. Once I got my glass onions going they grow faster than I seem to use them to i trim them with scissors periodically. But I never use the white part... And I'm ok with that. I'm a greener anyway.
Debbie from Illinois
Thanks Karen! This has been on my to do list, now I don't have to waste my name trying this.
Cheryl in Wisconsin
I have a permanent container for green onions in my kitchen window. I leave the stumps longer than your example, and place them in a short, narrow vase (similar shape to a juice glass), and change the water probably every other day. They grow rapidly, but not indefinitely, I usually toss each one after they've regrown twice. I still buy green onions but they get far more mileage by being used repeatedly. Next I'm going to try regrowing celery in dirt - now that I can find my dirt - the snow is gone.
Dianne
I did this after finding it on the 'net and it worked well. As someone previously mentioned I didn't decimate them as much - probably left a couple inches of green - kept them w/ the rubber band around them - just in a glass of water and changed the water every 2 or 3 days. Have had enough green onion tops to harvest that I haven't had to buy them since - which is great for me because I'd always wind up forgetting about some of them and have to throw them out - now no waste.
Jodi
You can do this with celery and it winks great!
Jennifer
I've found it's easier jut to buy them- I got weak limp little things from the ones in the soil, and the ones in water didn't grow at all for me.
Kim
I grow these year round and they are great when you need just the green part. For the white part, spend the 0.69 and plant the root part again. Mine get huge and so healthy, they always look so wilty and wimpy from the store and the bonus is they will flower with this amazing flower and they are actually flowering now. Just stick the white part in the dirt, it doesn't matter how small, and it will grow over two feet tall. I have to trim them if we don't eat them. A sushi chef taught me this trick when I was learning to make sushi and he went through the green parts in a huge way and threw away the white part so he starting planting them. I love it.
Lita
I threw some in the ground a year ago, and sort of forgot about them. They multiplied, and now I trim of the tops when I only want green, and pull out/snap off a section when I want the white bit too.
I have way WAY too many onions now.
This differed from your experiment in several ways:
>FULL sun, I don't think indoor growing is ever going to give you great results with these (I planted some in part shade and they looked like your photo for an entire growing season. Pathetic little things.)
>I stuck them straight in the dirt outside, and mostly forgot they existed (I like plants that prefer neglect and abuse;) )
>I left the onions to get established for an entire growing season. It's a long time, but now I never have to run to the store for them, I have soooo many (note, I do occassionaly break up a big gang of them and plant them in other places)
Kim is right about the flowers, they're pretty cool looking, and beneficials seem to really like them.
Barrie
Chiming in with the people who leave longer stumps, just 1.5" will do it and use a smaller jar/glass. That said, it was not the miracle - now I'll always have green onions without buying them - that I thought it would be as you can really only use them twice but it does work quite well if you just don't use that last 1.5" :-)
Manda
Thank goodness I'm not the only one! I was a complete failure at this little experiment.
Gettinby
Karen, TWO FULL BUNCHES A WEEK?! Goodness, your onion demands are intense.
I grow my onions like this, with the longer stalks, but I only ever use one to two onions before the rest of the bunch rots in the fridge.
Melissa
THANK YOU for doing this. I pinned this, thinking I would give it a try --- 'cause it is so darn interesting to think of the potential --- but I held back, and now I am so glad I did. >mwah< One less thing on my Pinterest to do list!
Eve
We've planted the tops of pineapples before, but just for a free pretty potted plant. We never got another pineapple out of the deal. Although I have heard some people have!
Lynne Knowlton
what what? The internet tells lies? Dang.
Don'tcha just love cutting off the end of the onion, and dipping it in salt ? Tasty! *childhood memories* Yum.
Karen
Lynne - *Gasp*! I'd forgotten all about that! My mother did it/does it. She also drinks pickle juice sometimes. Eep. ~ karen
lori
heard drinking pickle juice helps with an upset tummy
mCrow
And also leg and foot cramps.
Vero
Thank you for doing this! Glad now I only had to suffer second-hand disappointment as opposed to first-hand. So wishing it actually worked!
Jim S
WOW, Karen, I've never heard of this before either!
I might have to try m@rambling musings's suggestion of just sticking old green onions in the garden. I'm likely to misplace a jar of soaking onions and it sounds like they go bad REAL quick.
Opps! One of the bells just fell off my shoe. Excuse me for a minute....
Karen
Hah! ~ karen