Re-grow Green Onions? Really??!!

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I'll admit it, I was a doubter.  I saw the pin, and thought what, are these people crazy?  You let a plant go to seed and harvest seeds, then you can re-grow it.  Or you can be lazy, like me, and BUY your seeds.  Or buy your starts.  But... but... re-grow stuff from the grocery store.  Whuuuuut?

Yeah.

I saw a couple of different pins about this over the last few weeks.  Multiple people were doing this trick all over the place it seemed, but I'd never heard of it.  I read a few of the different pins about it (and am highlighting this one because of the extra tip on freezing your green onion tops in an empty water bottle - such a smart idea) and they all seemed to be in agreement; all you need is water, and you can have practically unlimited green onions.

I was still uncertain, because I have a really, really gloomy kitchen.  It doesn't even have a window.  Were they serious about all I needed was water - what about sunlight?  This would really be a challenge of the Pinteresting variety.

When my husband first spied the little coffee mug of green onion bottoms in the kitchen, he laughed.  He thought I was crazy.  But look who's laughing now!!

 My skepticism was not warranted.  You really can grow green onions in a little bit of water, even in a dim, window-less kitchen.  All I did was plop these into a mug, change the water every 24 hours or so.  Some are about two weeks old at this point, and some are about a week and a half old.

It took less than a day to start seeing shoots growing out of the little white stubs, and not a single one failed to thrive on me, which is pretty impressive considering how many fail to thrive in my garden every year.  Of course, my kitchen is pest and disease free, at the very least.

As you can see, it's not a terribly fast process.  It's going to take a solid three weeks, I think, for me to feel like they're "ready" for a cutting, though some are progressing faster than others.  Still, a three-week turnaround when all you have to do is give 'em a drink every day is pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned.

I was surprised to see that the roots themselves didn't really grow much, but that's not the important part.  The important part is that those lovely green stalks are going to save me a few bucks on green onions, and I'm fairly excited about cutting that little bit out of our grocery budget.

I don't expect them to grow forever, but we'll see how long they last!  Definite thumbs-up for a quick, fun, and easy growing exercise.