How to Grow Green Onions at Home
Whenever I cook, I like to use green onions in my food. They are a flavorful addition to any dish and look nice as a plate garnish. Unfortunately, I usually only use one or two green onions for each dish. After a few days in the refrigerator, the store-bought green onions often wilt. If you hate wasting food and wonder how to keep your green onions fresh, the solution is simple: grow them yourself. Green onion is one of the easiest growing vegetables you can grow at home. You don’t even need seeds! Here I’m going to show you how:
The easiest way to grow green onions
The easiest way to grow green onions is to grow them in water. Green onions from grocery stores often come with bulbs. After you buy a bag of green onions, cut the leaves (green part) off for cooking, and leave 2-3 inches of the bulb (white part) with roots. You can stand the bulbs in a jar and add some water to cover the roots. Remember to change the water often to prevent rot. Place the jar on a bright window sill. The bulb will start growing new leaves. You can cut the leaves for cooking as they grow. Using this method, you can harvest an onion 2 or 3 times. The growth will become slower and new leaves will become thinner after each harvest because water does not provide enough nutrition to the onions.
A slightly better way
My preferred way of growing green onions is growing them in good soil or potting mix.
I’m using a home-made soilless potting mix. I added approximately 4 parts of washed coco coir and 1 part of perlite to a container and mix thoroughly. I plant the onion bulbs in the potting mix and add a teaspoon of general-purpose slow-release fertilizer to the pot. I prefer this method because the potting mix holds enough moisture for the onions, but also provides good drainage so the bulbs won’t rot. The slow-release fertilizer will feed the onions so they will produce more leaves. Place the container where the onions can get bright light. Water the green onions when the pot feels light. You’ll be enjoying your potted green onions for a long time.
Some additional tips about green onions :
1. Are Green onions, scallions, spring onions, and shallots the same?
They are various species from the genus Allium and closely related to each other. Many people use these names interchangeably. Flavor-wise, they taste similar and can replace one another in cooking.
2. How to store green onions?
The best way I found is to chop up green onion leaves and freeze them. The frozen onion leaves taste as good as fresh onions.
3. Which part of the scallion can you harvest?
You can harvest and eat both the leaves (green part) and bulb (white part). The leaves taste milder and more flavorful, while the bulbs taste spicier. The leaves contain more nutrition than the bulbs, including vitamin C, carotene, chlorophyll. So I usually only cut off the leaves, and the bulbs will continue producing leaves for my next harvest.
4. Why sometimes green onions feel slimy?
Sometimes inside healthy green onion leaves, you can find a gel-like or slimy liquid. The gel-like liquid is the sap of the green onion. It is normal and safe to eat.
5. When to harvest green onions?
You can harvest green onions any time. I like to wait until the leaves are about 20cm (7-8 inches) to cut them so I get a good amount of leaves.
6. When to plant green onion?
If you are planting them indoors, timing does not matter. I’ve grown green onions indoors in containers in all seasons. You can see from the picture above I am growing green onions in winter when outside is icy cold (I live in zone 5). As long as the onions can get enough water, nutrition, and light, the difference is very small.