Growing onions from the Grocery Store!

[stratacat73]

Hey! I am a complete novice. I have never grown anything in my life, until now. I was about to throw away the bruised onions on top of my microwave when I noticed that one of them was growing green Sprouts out of the top. Figuring it couldn't hurt, I put the bulb in a plastic container of water on the windowsill in my kitchen. within two days, what appeared to be a root system began (re?)forming on the bottom, and the greenery is getting longer.

How do I proceed with this? I know I Should find it some soil, but it appears that there may be more than one plant coming from the bulb. Should I separate them? Can I get the soil I need from a nursery? What kind of fertilizer should I use, if any. If I want to grow more, I guess that I have to sprout the offspring of this plant unless I wanna plant a whole bag of onions (Ha ha ha!) or grow from a smaller set. The onions came from Easterday Farms in Pasco Washington.

I am looking forward to comments, as I have pondered starting a garden from grocery store fruits and veggies before but never did anything about it until now.

Furthermore, I have a related, yet broader question:

Can edible foods be grown from what I assume to be genetically altered starters? What are the consequences of this?

Stratacat

[BrianSkilton]

I would say, if the onion/s have grown more roots then plant them in some regular dirt, onions are not fuzzy at all, in fact they are frost tolerant, and I just pulled some onions up that were in my garden throughout the winter and they were still totally edible. Onions do not like rich soil, so any potting soil will do just fine. Onions also do not need a terrible amount of water, they like hot dry days. Once the onion has developed roots it will sprout a tall green stalk which is edible as well, and the onion itself will grow bigger. If you let the onion's green stalk grow, it will form a flower when bolting and the seeds are taken from this flower to start more onions/ onion sets. I am no expert but that is about all I know about onions.

As with starting a garden with vegetables found in the grocery store, most everyone I have talked to think you will get something that is ineditable. I however have saved pepper seeds, tomato seeds extra, and I have some plants doing very well with seeds I have saved from grocery produce. Some tomato/pepper plants may cross with other varieties and you may get something different then the fruit you bought. I say go for it, save the seeds from the grocery store, try it and see what happens, your going to get something edible, depends on which parent the seeds came from.

cynthia is right -- the green tops to onions are extremely delicious, I use them for when I make any kind of stir fry. They are really good in the orange chicken I make

[cynthia_h]

A little note: You can trim some of the green tops from an onion plant and use them in cooking, and the plant will still thrive. Just don't take more than half of them or so.

I've done this with my onions throughout the winter. Some I've "harvested" from more than twice, and they're still producing green tops for me. They're not bulbing, though, but they might not in my climate. I've never planted onions before, so can't tell. (And my yard is at least 5 deg. cooler than Zone 17 is supposed to be, anyway.)

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[ShadowLight]

I had something similar happen with an onion growing out of our compost pile. I dug it up and put it with my other onions. Now it's growing as good or better than the rest!