Planted Green Onion, week 2

The Monday of week #2 didn't see any new growth.  In fact, the ends where I clipped the leaves are already starting to shrivel again.  Am I supposed to be cutting off the entire leaf?

Tuesday saw no real significant change, although the two plants on the right continue to grow.  The one on the left seems to have slowed down significantly.

Here are close-ups of the plants.  This does really demonstrate how the plant on the right seems to have stopped growing.

On Thursday, I noticed roots in the two jars on the right.  The left jar did not have any roots.  We shall see how things look again next week.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

Planted Green Onions, week 1

Monday's picture shows new growth on 4 of the 6 onions.

On Tuesday, the plants continued to thrive.

Here are some pictures of the new growth on the 2 plants to your right.

Here is Wednesday's picture.  Not really much to explain.  Things continue on.

Thursday's picture didn't show anything out of the ordinary.  There were no new shoots coming up, and the old shoots continued to die off.

I just wanted to take a picture of the longest new shoot.  This is the jar on your left, which seems to have sprouted either quite rapidly or immediately after planting.

Here they are as of Friday noonish of week #1.  As you can see, the growth seems to have stopped, but the onions are still overall green and fresh.

It seems that I somehow forgot to take some pictures on Saturday.

Therefore, on Sunday of Week #1, this is how the onions looked.  Some more of the leaves became brown, but all the onions still had green leaves, meaning none appeared to be dead.  Planted 1 week ago, these green onions appear to still be viable.  I did some clipping to prune back the dead leaves, as appears below.  We shall see if this results in new growth.

And here are some close-ups showing the new growth on 4 of the 6 plants.

At the end of next week, I may pull out one of the onions to see if it is still usable in a recipe.  I will just have to make sure I make a recipe that calls for about ⅛ cup of green onion.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

Green Onions, towel & foil method

Another method I have seen for preserving green onions is to wrap them in a paper towel, wrap the paper towel in aluminum foil, and store in the fridge.  So, here we go . . .

A bunch of green onions I bought yesterday (18 Dec. 2013).

Rolling up the onions is paper towels so that they do not touch each other (≈2:30 p.m., 19 Dec. 2013).

Putting them in aluminum foil.

Violà, a green onion joint.

Now, this gets put in the fridge, and it is supposed to preserve the green onions for longer than not rolling them up.  This method is much less expensive than the planting method, but the onions will still eventually be unusable for cooking.  We shall see how long this takes.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

References:

Green onions, day 2

Today, the outer skins of the onions have begun to dry out.  The wilted leaves have begun to show signs of browning.  I am going to give it another day before I remove them.  I also think I will keep track of this on a weekly basis from now on, so check back this coming weekend for another update.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

Green onions, 12 hours later

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

The onions have not died after 12 hours.  Yes, there is some more wilting, but they have definitely not ided yet.  I put my hand on the windowsill; it felt warm to the touch.  I believe that is a good sign.  I want to cut off the wilted leaves, but I do not know if that would be a good thing or a bad thing.  Perhaps waiting for some new growth, which should happen according to the original information, or for the wilted leaves to dry is the correct approach.  Also, the top of the soil is dry, though there is plenty of water surrounding the rocks at the bottom.  Evaporation should water the plants (he said with fingers crossed).  Anywho, I will take another picture tomorrow at about the same time and continue the green onion blog.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

Green onion, the planting

Now, I am not much of a plant person.  I often say I have 2 black thumbs, so if this experiment fails, it could just be me.  With that caveat, let us begin.

I went to the Lowe's to buy pots and potting soil.  Unfortunately, they did not have any small pots that would fit on my windowsill, this being winter and all.  However, they did have potting soil.  I bought Miracle-Gro® Potting Mix with Micromix®.  The cost was $5.35 for an 8.8L bag.  Needing cheap pots, I headed over to Dollar Tree to see what there was.  They had glass cheese shakers (made in the USA even!) for $1 each, of course; so I purchased 3 of those, figuring 2 onions per shaker.  Knowing there should be some sort of drainage, I also bought a 2-pound bag of stones.  With taxes, these purchases cost me $4.35, but the shakers and stones will be reusable.

With pots and potting mix in hand, I then purchased a bunch of green onion from Sprout's grocery store.  The onions with tax (Yes, onions taxed; not because they are food but to pay for the road to get to the mall with the store in it.) cost me 50¢ for a bunch of 6 onions.  Now, I have to ask myself, "Is spending $9.70 in an effort to preserve an item that costs 8⅓¢ really a frugal thing?"  Mathematically speaking, I will have to preserve 117 green onions before breaking even.  Well, I bought the stuff, so I might as well complete the experiment.

To set up the pots, I put a handful of stones into each shaker and topped this with potting mix to about ½” below the rim.  (By the way, 1 cup of Miracle-Gro® Potting Mix with Micromix® weighs 2 ounces, which means the 8.8L bag should weigh 73.3 ounces total.)  I used a pen to make a hole in the dirt and tried to insert an onion.  While doing this, the dirt compacted about an inch.  Upon trying to insert the onion, it was too wide, so I used my finger to expand the hole.  I made a second hole and planted a second onion in the same jar.  Since the dirt compressed, I put in more dirt.  After completing all 3 shakers, I placed them on a windowsill.

As you can see in the picture above, the onions had already received a little bit of damage by the time I planted and placed them.  Another concern is the winter weather.  I am not sure if the cold seeping in will impact the test.  Problem is, my apartment is so small that I have no other place to put them to get sunshine, so there you go.  We shall see how they fair in the coming days and, hopefully, weeks.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.

The Green Onion Experiment

Back in November, I had to buy green onions for a recipe.  I ended up only needing 2 of the 6 in the bunch, so I searched the Internet for ways to keep them fresh.  You can read the original post on my Facebook page; but the gist of it is to freeze them to use them in soups and stocks or, according to this blog at CHOW, replant them to keep them fresh to use later.  Another experiment was born.

• The planting
• 12 hours later
• day 2
• First week in review
• Second week in review

PS:  The same blog says to separate them with a paper towel and then wrap the whole thing in foil.  Next time I am at the grocery store, I will buy another bunch and try this method as well.

As always, I welcome your comments.  Click on the Comment link below; it may say "No" or have a number in front of it.