Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Accidental Onions

A couple of months ago I opened the lid to the the compost pile and saw some fresh-looking green onion ends laying on top of the coffee grounds and grass clippings. I don't know who tossed them in, but I knew it wasn't me (if I had been doing the cooking I would have thrown them in the stock scrap bag I keep in the freezer).  Back when I tried to re-grow green onion from the stem ends it was in water and I didn't have any luck, but I wondered what would happen if I planted these stubs in the dirt. I used my finger to poke holes in the wet garden bed next to the compost pile, inserted a onion bottom in each one, and tamped the dirt around tightly. When I was done all you could see were two little green stumps poking out of the ground.

 I didn't do anything to those stumps. There has been (more than) enough rain to keep the garden area saturated. Because of their location theonions weren't particularly easy to see, and after a while I kind of forgot about them,  However, a couple of weeks ago I noticed the green tops, which were now long, luxuriant, and very thick. I couldn't wait to see what the bottoms were like!  When I dug them up they looked like this:


The one on the right was like a green onion on steroids, but the one on the left was actually starting to develop a papery onion skin.  I chopped them up, ends and all, and threw them into the fritatta I was making for dinner, where they added a great onion flavor.

Five years ago today: Fat Cat

9 comments:

  1. Cool! We had an onion that sprouted this spring. I carefully took it apart and planted the sprouting stems. Just the other day I harvested my little onions, which looked a lot like yours. Himself said they were quite tasty.

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    1. We go through onions so fast they rarely have time to sprout, but that would be interesting to try.

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  2. Love this idea! I might try it in a planter, with just the rooted ends one of these days.

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    1. I bet it would look nice in a planter. If you do, make sure to post a photo :-)

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  3. That's great! I love regrowing my green onions in a pot.

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  4. This is the precise weblog for anybody who needs to seek out out about this topic. You notice so much its almost arduous to argue with you. You positively put a brand new spin on a subject that's been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!

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  5. How cool is growing your own ingredients?! I love that idea. And yeah, the other onion looks like it's on steroid. :D

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