Moving into a condominium doesn't stop me from continuing my passion in growing vegetables. I now grow them in containers. One of the easiest things to grow, is red spring onion. And you can grow them from kitchen scraps.
A friend once asked me how I grow my red spring onion. I answered, "Just take a red onion and put it in the water and it will grow overnight!" in short. It is simply that easy. But I will still have the step-by-step for you here.
- Buy some red onions
Duh! 10 days ago, I bought a bag of red onions for half the original price. Most of the red onions have sprouted, exactly how I like it. You may buy young red onion and keep a few for them to sprout. Or you can use the onions, and keep the bottom parts to regrow them into spring onion.
- Peel the onions
The next day, I peeled the red onions. As some of them started to rot, planting the red onion together with the rotten parts will only grow maggots rather than spring onions. Be prepare for the pungent smell and 10 smelly fingers.
It took me 2 episodes of Cantonese drama to get the whole bag of red onions ready to be planted, about 50 of them.
You don't have to peel much, just one or 2 layers until the rotten parts are peeled off and the whole onion looks fresh and red.
Sometime you will see the roots growing upward in between the layers of onion. Don't mind them, just be careful when you peeling off the layers. It can be tricky. It won't hurt if you rip the roots off, it will grow back very fast. But it is good to keep them too.
- Sow them
After peeling them, I lined them in a plastic container, nicely. Don't soak them in too much water as they will start getting rotten. Just sprinkle water on the onions will do. Check them daily and change the water daily. If it smell, it means there are some rotten onions amongst them. Get rid if them.
You can plant them into soil too. Burry them half way into the soil. I prefer not to burry them all the way in as if you accidentally water too much, soon you will see maggots.
Red onions are water-suckers and the roots grow very fast and very long. Hence, a deep container is preferred.
If the container is too shallow, the roots might have no where to go and push the onion up, or start venturing out.
- Reap
The shoots, the spring onions, are ready to be reaped in just 5 days. Harvest all the green ones. They will grow back in no time.
Option:
You may keep onions in water too.
