Onions are commonly used in our everyday dishes to enhance their flavor.
The general idea is to store them in cool, dark, and dry places.
So, for instance, you have a bunch of onions and put them in your pantry for a while.
You use one once in a while, but after some time they start to look a little old.
The outside looks drier, thinner. The onion starts to shrink a bit.
Then, one day, you come back and notice a green bud emerging from one of your onions!
Do you throw it away? Is it still good? What do you do?
CAN YOU PLANT AN ONION THAT HAS SPROUTED?
One thing you can do, is plant it to get more onions!
Although an onion can start to look a little rotten as it sprouts, as long as the sprout looks healthy then you should be fine.
On average, every sprouted onion can yield one to three new onions so that’s more bang for your buck.
SHOULD YOU SEPARATE SPROUTING ONIONS?
With that being said, most onions usually come from individual seeds.
When one onion sprouts that can produce multiple onions at once, meaning that the sprouts need to be separated in order to allow them to grow to full size.
We’ll touch on that more as we explain how you can plant your sprouted onions.
HOW TO PLANT SPROUTED ONIONS?
Start by taking it out of the pantry and peeling the outer layers of the onion.
Layers that are soft and starting to rot are unusable, while layers that are still hard and crisp can still be used if you want to cook with them. Use caution.
Once you peel the onion to the core, the sprouts should be the only thing left.
Peel back, now, at the layers of skin wrapped around the sprouts to reveal the roots and separate plants themselves.
You should have around one to three different plants that you can separate by making careful cuts to the core that connects them.
Onion sprouts do not generally need to be planted in soil for the first three weeks. So, all you need to do is store them in a place that is cool and dry. After some time, you can plant them one inch below the surface of some soil. Space the other plants about 4 inches so that the individual onion bulbs have space to grow.
Keep them watered at least once a week (or just enough so that the soil around the plants doesn’t appear dry) and in the sun.
Onions reach their best size around two to three months after being planted. You should be able to monitor their growth and estimate their size even before you harvest them.
You want to harvest your onions before they start to flower, this is because the onions stop growing once the flower develops. To do this, you pull them out of the ground and brush off the dirt. That simple!
These new onions are ready to be eaten as soon as they come out of the ground. If you want to store them, you’ll have to dry them out to avoid letting water rot the onions.
This is often done by letting them lay in a warm place (like out in the sun at around 75-80 degrees fahrenheit). Some people like to just leave them on the ground in their garden and to move them so that all sides can dry out, and you can do this or have them hang in a mesh bag or wire basket that can allow for all sides to be dried throughout.
You’ll know when they are done when the green tops are dried up and the outer layer of the onion is firm, but this can take around two to six weeks depending on the size of the onion. These onions, now that they are cured, can last for around ten months.
You might have a few questions following this process, here are a few that we can answer to get you started.
WHY DO ONIONS SPROUT?
Onions naturally want to grow as plants.
Placing them in dry, cool places keeps them from beginning this process.
Once they receive some kind of moisture or warmth, which may be a result of humidity in your area, they will start to sprout.
HOW TO MAKE ONIONS SPROUT FASTER
To help your onions grow faster once they are in the soil, you should weed around your plants so that they get enough nutrients. Fertilizer can also help ensure that the onions get what they need to grow.
ARE ONION SPROUTS THE SAME AS GREEN ONIONS?
While onion sprouts look a lot like green onions, chives, and/or scallions, they are not the same.
Some reports state that, even if you tried to cut up the sprouts and use them in your cooking, they are less flavorful and are tougher in texture.
WILL YOU GET MORE ONIONS IN HARVEST?
Like we mentioned earlier in the article, a sprouted onion can give you a return of up to three new onions.
This is a bit of a game of chance, so you might get one sprout, two sprouts, three, or maybe four! It depends on the type of onion you have.
Also check: Best Onion Companion Plants?
Also check: Growing Bunching Onions From Seed?
Also check: How to cure onions?
CONCLUSION
There are numerous varieties of onion that you can buy from the store.
These plants naturally want to grow and multiply, so, when placed in a warm, moist, and sunny place they begin to sprout.
When you notice a sprout start to grow, you can choose to let the onion continue by keeping it in a place where it can remain warm and in the sun. This will cause the sprout to grow longer and the onion to grow smaller – while the outer layers might become papery and dry.
You can still use the outer layers of the onion to eat, as long as they are firm and are not reduced to mold. When the sprout has developed to become visible outside the onion, you can take certain steps to separate the sprouts from the onion and prepare them for planting.
Try it out and see how you can grow your own onions!
With any luck, you can also retrieve seeds from when your sprouts flower and plant even more onions.
You’ll have your own onion garden in no time.
