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Infinite Green Onion Hack? Growing Green Onion from the scraps

I'm sure many of you already know this but for those of you that don't, you can take the bottom of the green onions that you buy from the grocery stores and grow more green onion! Green onion is comprised of two basic parts - the stalk or the green portion and the bulb. The bulb is usually white and has some roots growing from the bottom. In order to grow your own green onion from this you don't even need to save the entire white portion. I recommend leaving at least an inch though. once you cut that off, you can use the remaining green onion for consumption. With that portion of the bulb that you saved give it a rinse and remove any peeling, dying skin, and dead roots. This will help prevent rot. 

There are a few ways you can grow your green onion. The easiest way is to put them in some water. Note that you do not want to submerge the bulb. You only want the bottom root portion to be exposed to water. Letting the entire bulb sit in water will encourage (not what we want in this case) rot. So you'll want to put them in a container with mainly half or three-quarters of an inch of water. The other way is to plant them in dirt. I have found this method more difficult to get the plant going. My preferred method is to start the green onions in water and then later when they have established roots, plant them in soil. 

I started some green onions just recently. The ones in this picture are about three days old but it will give you an idea of how fast they grow when placed in water. Also, I'd like to note that for my container to grow them in, I am using a McDonald's sundae cup. I always feel bad about this single use plastic so I thought I could give the sundae cup another life here. 

Growing the green onion bottoms in water
Growing the green onion bottoms in water

All of the green that you can see in the photo is new growth. where the white ends n the top is where I originally cut it with a knife. I have this cup indoors underneath my grow light. Not only is there fast growth of the green portion of the onion but the roots have also grown a lot in just a few days.

Green onion root growth in water
Look at them roots!

The long roots are the new root growth. That in just a couple of days seems crazy. The green onion will grow happily just in water for awhile. You can probably get another harvest of the tops in a few weeks. You should change the water every few days at least because it will get dirty and very oniony smelling. Also note that the plants won't be getting any additional nutrients from just the water which is why I eventually plant them in dirt later on. 

All in all this is an easy and fun way to get a bit more green onion out of your grocery store purchase. For the green onion I have planted in a pot on my balcony, for some reason it took almost a year for them to start growing very abundantly. But I recently harvested some green onion from my balcony to eat. I can't say my successes are great when it comes to growing my own veggies in my humble apartment but I just enjoy that sense of satisfaction for what I can grow!

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