Grow Onions from Discarded Onion Bottoms

This Instructable outlines how to grow fresh onion plants from discarded onion bottoms that would otherwise be thrown in the trash.  You can theoretically create an endless supply of onions without ever having to buy bulbs or seeds, and if you're as big of an onion lover in the kitchen as I am, you'll have a full bed of onions in no time.

3 Week Update:
New roots have formed on the example onion used in this Instructable, and the starts of leaves are forming which can be seen by the two distinct rises at the top of the onion.  This onion will more than likely form two plants just like fully formed example on this Intro page.

4 Week Update:
New leaves are forming above the soil, and it's clear that this plant will be able to be divided.  It has now gone through a hard freeze in its pot sitting on a growing table.

Step 1: Materials

You will need:

• Onion
• Clean Knife
• Cutting Board
• Starter Pot with Potting Soil (optional)

 

Comments

[WoundedEgo]

I've been doing this for a while now. The onion's new growth will always be from the center area of the onion, so you can peel away most of the old grow before you put it into the soil. I also plant the tops of pineapples. Just pull green part off and tear back the bottom half inch of leaves to expose more of the stalk and then stick it in about a half an inch of water for a couple of days. When the roots have grown out to where they could start utilizing the soil, put them in the soil. They are extremely unfussy. I grow them successfully in medium sized containers and I don't even have to water them. I also grow cumin, fenugreek and mustard from my spice cabinet. I have a three year old avocado tree that I grew from an avocado pit. I grow store bought ginger and turmeric as well. Also shallots, celery and of course onions. I'm in an apartment and the plants are all outdoors (except I just brought in my celery, thanks to advice below) and no one complains. The key to success is the quality of the soil. You have to have container mix if you plant in containers, not "top soil". Gardening is soooo rewarding.

[Tammy Lee]

I am going to be trying this for the first time. Hoping it will work out fine for me. I love trying out new things and I love gardening.

[kvmidd2205]

you can do this with lots of things. Melons lay on side, cut them in half scoop out fruit center, save seed. Refill rine with potting soil, plant seed. Will start sprouting. In spring carry outside and plant rine. Use two pallets lean tops together and tie. Train vines to go up your pallet trellis. When melons start forming support them with old shirt or for small melons recycle onion bags or stockings. Let your melons grow in a craddle. You can also start lemon and orange trees this way. Being an Herbivore I prefer to grow what I eat. Currently have tomatoes, spinach, kale, bok choy, celery, tendergreens along with herbs all growing in the house. Want to freak friends out. While talking to them reach over pic a leaf and eat it. My neighbor still asks me what the heck I'm doing when I reach down and eat a dandilion leaf. He totally flipped when I did it to a small thistle leaf.

[josiemcdoo925]

What about celery? Can you do the same thing with it as with the onions. I am excited to try the onion thingy.

[laurelbug0515]

Dont know if you have tried it yet, considering your comment was a few months ago, but if you havent...It is SO easy to grow celery, I am actually looking at my plant right now, and going to plant a new one soon, I literally cut off the bottom of my store bought celery and planted it, when I looked it up, it said cut off 2 inches from bottom, but I had already cut mine WAY down, I planted it anyways about a month and a half ago, its about 6 inches tall, growing in my kitchen window!! good luck=)

[AngryRedhead]

Sorry about the late reply!

I've heard tale that you can do the same celery, but here in Texas, it's kinda hard to grow celery. Consequently I haven't tried. If you run a Google search, you should be able to find the tales I speak of.

[kvmidd2205]

I live in South Carolina and alot of times its too hot so I grow them inside. Celery and bok choy do great in a sunny window.

[astraley]

Thank you for posting this Instructable. I tried it out with a few different kinds of onions but results of 3 out of 5, definitely better than 0 out of 0.

[AngryRedhead]

There's some variability with how much flesh/meat you leave on the onion to give it some energy to produce roots and leaves, and there's some variability with how old the onion was.  Stuff like that.



Glad you got some success though!  And hope you had fun!

[astraley]

I definitely did/am. The onions themselves (the ones that actually took root) are still very small, but have green bits on them. I love watching plants get larger over time, and hope these little guys can handle being out in the garden when i transfer them from the pot later. Have a wonderful day and thank you for the quick response :)

[SinAmos]

I've been doing this for a long time, but I can't believe you made an instructable on this.

[peterbancroft]

I found it very useful - sometimes the simplest things are the ones which are overlooked. I've been growing onions for years and it never occurred to me that you could do this.

[oanderson]

Was that insulting?

[javajunkie1976]

Some years ago, I had a vegetable garden and re-planted some green onions. My mother had used the top portion and let me have the rest. After planting, watering, and waiting I harvested onions that were HUGE!! I kid you not, the smallest one was 3 inches in diameter. The largest was about the size of a softball. Kept the big one and gave away the rest.

Aren't plants amazing? Yet, I still can't figure out how to start potatoes...

[blonderhody]

potatoes, cut eyes with some potato on it, bury in soil, water, watch the plants take hold! really very easy.

[Totysheep]

Allot of potatoes from the store wont start because theyve been sprayed with something to stop sprouting(so they last longer) But you can still find unsprayed potatoes at farmers markets or "seed potatoes" at gardencenters(those are potatoes too small for consumption but ok for planting)

[Nicola Tesla]

u can't plant them again because they are hybrid

[Totysheep]

Yes you can, only there is a chance that the "KID" plants/potatoes are not the same as the "PARENT" plant/potatoes but it might also just work fine. This isn't the same with the onions in this instructable though, because the new onion isn't a kid, it's the same plant just regenerating its bulb.

[AngryRedhead]

There's always a plant that eludes us.  I'm impressed with your onion results!

[javajunkie1976]

Thank you. Unfortunately, I live in an apartment that gets too much wind to effectively plant anything in pots or growbags and the manager won't let me put up wind fencing... I really like the instructable on planting stuff in old shoe racks, I may have to try that.

[butterbeans]

what does "It has now gone through a hard freeze in its pot sitting on a growing table." mean?

[blonderhody]

good chance it wont survive!!

[AngryRedhead]

I was just describing the conditions of the onion and what it was able to withstand.  I published this in January of last year, so the 4-week update was sometime in February which is quite early for most people to start growing onions.  The hard freeze wasn't ideal but didn't injure the plant too badly.

[blonderhody]

its very easy to grow garlic and onions, just plant single cloves, skin and all in soil. onions too, easiest gardening i know!!

[alexehrlich]

can you do the same thing with garlic? do you peel away the husk first and deal with individual cloves?

[moxiepurple]

I tried this, it worked pretty well until I removed the onion after it had been planted for a while to peel away the dead layers, I placed it outside, and watered it, but eventually it turned into a mushy dead mess. I will have to try again sometime.

[pwillett1]

I have an onion that has sprouted in the vegetable bin, and the bulb is going squishy. Is there some way I can plant it in the garden at this point, or do I need to just root the bottom first. If so, do I just discard the sprouts coming out of the top of the bulb? If I cover the bottom with potting soil, how will I know when it has a good set of roots?

[AngryRedhead]

I have planted squishy onions in the ground and had good success with them rebounding.  Of course, I've had a few that just continued to turn to mush.  It'll be a judgment call.  You can plant it as it is, or you can remove the squishy bits and then plant the remaining bulb and shoots.

[butterbeans]

awesome 'ible!
just wondering if you know how far apart to grow these onions. I don't have a yard and will have to resort to a container, so i'm just thinking about what size pot to consider.
thanks!

[AngryRedhead]

It depends on how you're wanting to harvest the onions.  I've seen onions grown very closely together for a scallion harvest, but for dried onions, they need about 1-2 onions width worth between growing onions.  In your situation, what I would recommend would be to use a 5 gallon nursery pot, and basically fill it with onion bottoms with a few inches between the onions.  As onions hit scallion size, harvest some of those and use them.  Allow the remaining onions to grow larger and harvest as dry onions.  However, I'm not an expert on growing onions, but onions are pretty darn easy to grow if given the appropriate soil, light, water, and nutrition.  There aren't many pest/disease problems to worry about.  That's probably why I grow them along side other plants that are prone to pest/disease such as tomatoes, flowering annuals, potatoes, etc.  They make great companion plants for many other vegetables.  So if you're wanting to grow tomatoes, get a 10 gallon container (or larger if you can manage) and grow a few onions in the same container.  Or alternatively try growing some eggplant or cucumbers or any of the other vining vegetable that are very attractive to nasty critters.  Just make sure the container gets full sun.  I'm not sure if this helps, but hopefully it'll give you a few ideas on where to go from here.

[scoochmaroo]

I am trying this with shallots. One bottom drying now. They're >$4/lb right now!

[AngryRedhead]

You probably don't need to let it dry very long.  Maybe a couple hours.  And you might want to tent the pot to keep humidity high.  It's very easy to lose these bulbs due to lack of water especially since they require relatively fast draining soil and have no moisture reserves.

I'll be very interested to see how it goes.  Do you plan on taking pics?

[scoochmaroo]

Hrm. I didn't cut off very much of the bottom, and now I'm worried it's too dry! But I'll give it a shot and let you know. I'm a complete noob when it comes to gardening!

[AngryRedhead]

Well, don't fret over it too much. They can dry out quite a bit and still be totally fine. Plus if it doesn't take, there's always future shallots to try it out with! :-)

[sheesha11799]

Wow.. this has all been so fascinating! I can hardly wait til spring to try my hand at some of these wonderful ideas!! Onions and garlic and 'maters Oh My!

[Totysheep]

I sooo totally knew it made sense!!!! I planted a whole bunch of union bottoms once when I was little and I used to have a big military macaw pet (read: giant bird like Kevin from 'UP') and he saw me playing with the flowerpots so he wanted a go at them too! When I came home from school the next day I saw that he tore them all apart and ate the unions! My mom was kinda pissed that there was soil all over her patio furniture so I wasn't allowed to plant stuff anymore on the porch. I tried it in the garden where I used to live, but we have lizards and iguanas there that ate all my plants LOL! I was like 10 years or so, so I didn't know how to keep them of back then.

[AngryRedhead]

How odd! I've never had a problem with animals or bugs eating my onions. I guess I'm lucky that the local wildlife around here don't care for the taste - they prefer to go after my other plants.

[numian]

I have never tried this with onions before but have done it with many fruits & vegetable that have seeds.  Produce is so expensive I just couldn't accept  not using the seeds.  Not that seeds are expensive I guess it's just principle. Some seeds I've tried to grow from store bought produce are listed below:
Yellow & red Peppers-Let them dry in a glass or ceramic bowl on a windowsill before planting.
Cantalope-easy to germinate, just plant the seeds as they are removed from the fruit, no need to clean.  Spead them out because it seemed every one sprouts! They need lots of room to grow
Potatoes-easy
cucumbers- Let them dry first need to climb easy to grow
Mango & avocado- More difficult-use the small round HAAS avacados not much luck with Mangos
Watermelon-Easy to grow except the "seedless" variety:-)

I save seeds also.  After they've dried keep in plactic ziplock snack bags. I put the date  and what they are and store them in a drawer.  Toss them out after 2 years, not worth the time, just save more!
Has anyone tried to grow pomegranite seeds?

[Totysheep]

Yes! Where I come from pomegranate grows like weeds!!! Put the seeds in a pot and wait. Good luck and happy gardening! I always love it when people grow their own food!

[thepelton]

Pomegranite seeds are designed, like tomato or kiwi, to go through the digestive system before becoming capable of being grown.  I think that you could simulate such a thing by soaking them in vinegar.