Recycled sweet onion

I've been growing plants all of my life, from seeds and seedlings, by layering, dividing, from cuttings and pits. I've witnessed grafting and I've always been interested in testing a new growing method myself. Yet, growing vegetables from scraps is new to me. For years I've been composting all the kitchen scraps, even my grandmother did that, but never thought of growing a new plant from a leftover that usually gets discarded.

But, being a curious cookie that I am, I decided to test if a scrap can grow into a food, as soon as possible. Most every source on the topic suggests to put scraps in water. I guess I haven't really read the description carefully enough because when I first used a sweet onion for dinner, I went out and pressed the cut bottom straight into the soil of the nearest planter.

Can you imagine my disappointment when the next day I found out that the root bottom of my onion was supposed to be submerged in the water - in order to regrow?

Luckily I don't give up very easily so I kept carefully watering my misplaced scrap of onion with watering can every day. The surface of the scrap was leveled with the soil and it looked fresh for a week - until one morning, I discovered the first signs of growth!

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That was very exciting - especially since it happened pretty much by mistake. I'm pretty sure that keeping the growing media moist all the time was a big part of my unexpected success which encouraged me to plant another onion scrap in the same large planter. 

Two days after I took the first photo (above), the growth of new sweet onion greens is now obvious and very encouraging. I have no idea if a new onion will grow from these scraps - or all I can expect are some onion greens, delicious in salads.

What I do know is that I am about to find out how far scraping for food can go and that I'll probably plant every vegetable leftover from now on.

By the way, in the meantime I submerged another onion scrap in water with no success. There were no roots on the bottom and no growth on the top of the leftover.

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Photo above: my recycled sweet onion scrap 12 days after it was planted. My first vegetable scrap, growing into a food... yay!! :)

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I promise to update this post later on - with the progress and final result of this growing experiment. Bear with me, please.
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