Tag Archive for: Green Onions

Re-Grow Your Green Onions

First of all, let me begin by saying that I love green onions.

Green Onions

I plant the seeds in my vegetable garden in fall and they are ready for me to harvest in May.

Green Onions

Freshly-harvested onions on the right (Garlic is on the left).

I like to use them in my homemade salsa or sprinkled on top of any Mexican dish that I make – tacos, nachos, Mexican rice, etc.

What I don’t like is having to buy them at the store when they aren’t growing in my garden.  

BUT, I learned a great trick this year:

You can re-grow green onions by using the bottom part (the part you usually throw away).

Here is how you do it:

Green Onions

1. Cut off the white base of your green onions (use the top green part for whatever delicious meal you are cooking 😉

Green Onions
Green Onions

2. Place the bottom part of your green onions in a glass or jar and fill with water.  Take care NOT to cover the top of the onion with water.

3. Place in front of a sunny window and change the water every other day.

Green Onions

4. In only a week’s time, you will see your green onion start to regrow.  The photo above was taken after 10 days.

roots

You can see how the roots grew too.

5. Now simply slice of snip off the green tops for whatever you like to eat green onions on.

You can ‘re-use’ a green onion 2 – 3 times.  After this point, they will start to lose their ‘oniony’ flavor.

So, I hope you use this helpful tip.  It will not only save you $ at the store, but who doesn’t like more green onions?

Fall Break and Vegetable Seedlings…

I think my kids are ready to go back to school tomorrow after 2 1/2 weeks of being on fall break.

How do I know this?  Well, my two youngest daughters, Ruthie and Gracie, just asked me if there were any jobs that I needed them to do.


So after, I picked up my jaw from the floor, I told them that the patio needed to be swept and then thanked them for being so thoughtful.

A few minutes later, I saw them sweeping the patio.  Then I saw the hose come out as they sprayed the patio.  BUT, they didn’t stop there.  As I watched them, Ruthie started to squirt dish soap on the patio and then proceeded to scrub the patio using the broom.

I just didn’t have the heart to tell her that she didn’t need to use soap.  She was working so hard and looked like she was actually enjoying herself as she walked through all the soap suds.  

And now, I probably have the cleanest patio in the entire neighborhood 😉


Earlier this morning, I went outside to see how my vegetable garden was faring.  As I examined my plants, I paid special attention to many of my vegetable seedlings.

vegetable seedlings

My vegetable seedlings

I planted Cauliflower for the first time this fall.  We will see how it does.  I must admit that I am being a bit selfish about including it in my garden since I am the only one in our family who likes cauliflower.  But, since I’m the one who takes care of the garden, I think I’m entitled, don’t you?

vegetable seedlings

My vegetable seedlings

My lettuce seedlings are a bit late in getting started this fall.  The reason being that I didn’t learn my lesson last fall, when birds ate my new seedlings, which is what happened again this year.  So this is my second attempt this fall.

I am proud to say that I did find a solution to birds eating my lettuce seedlings that didn’t involve netting.  But I warn you, it isn’t particularly pretty looking…

vegetable seedlings

I decided to use burlap.  I didn’t put the burlap directly on the ground since the plants would grow through it and be caught.  So, I put two of my plastic patio chairs in the garden and draped the burlap over them and the garden fence.  My goal was to shield the seedlings from the bird’s view and so far, I have been successful.

vegetable seedlings

My vegetable seedlings

No, this aren’t grass seedlings.  They are my green onions.

You know what?  There is just something about seedlings that I find so attractive.  I think it is a combination of the bright green of youth and their tiny shapes.  What do you think?

vegetable seedlings

Another first in the garden this fall is shallots.  I haven’t heard much from people in our area growing them, so I am anxious to see how they do.

Now, I didn’t order any fancy shallots from a mail-order nursery.  I simply went to my local grocery store and bought a bunch.  I planted each bulb with the pointed end upward and covered them with 2″ of soil.

I can’t wait to see how they do when I harvest them this spring.

garlic

This little garlic sprout looked much better yesterday then it does today.  The torn leaves are courtesy of the newest member of our family, Max, who hasn’t learned that a fence means “keep out”.  We are working his obedience….

carrots

The carrots are doing beautifully and I will soon thin them.  The easiest way to do this is to simply snip off the unwanted seedlings at soil level.  If you pull them out, you risk disturbing the surrounding seedlings.

Nasturtiums

I planted Nasturtiums throughout my vegetable garden because they make great companion plants because they repel damaging insects and attract insects that will eat Scale (which I have problems every year).

Corn silk

Corn silk is beginning to appear on my fall corn.

This last seedling is not one that I planted or planned on growing this fall.

But, it showed up on its own and I decided that I will give it a chance….

tomato plant

Yes, it is a tomato plant.  To be precise, it is a ‘San Marzano’ tomato plant that came up from seed.  Its parent plant produce a ton of tomatoes for me last spring and some of the tomatoes fell to the ground, and so here is the result.

I’m not sure how it will do.  Tomatoes are susceptible to frost, which we do get here and on every vegetable gardening guide for our area, tomatoes are never listed as being started in the fall.

But, I am cautiously optimistic.  With shade protection in the summer and frost protection in the winter, a tomato plant can live for years UNLESS a severe frost occurs (like last year).

So, I will baby this little tomato plant (and the 3 others that also came up) and provide protection from frost this winter.

I will let you know how they do.  If they survive, I will have a huge head start on growing tomatoes next spring 🙂

How about you?  

Have you planted any vegetables this fall?

Vegetable Seedlings and Another Confession…

Mondays in the Garden – Planting Vegetable Seed

I just love Mondays….

But, I must admit that my love for Mondays is rather new.  I didn’t always enjoy sitting in traffic, headed for my office in downtown Phoenix, where I worked as a landscape designer.  (I did enjoy my beautiful office that overlooked the city from the 14th floor).

Fast forward to 5 years later, and I find Mondays refreshing.  For one, the kids are back in school after a hectic weekend, trying to get their projects finished on time.  I also love that Monday is a fresh start.  I rarely have time to garden on the weekends, so Mondays is a wonderful time to step outside and see what is flowering, smell the subtle fragrance of my desert trees and most importantly – see what has developed in my vegetable garden.

Fall vegetable garden

Two weeks ago, I planted my fall vegetable garden – on a Monday.  It all started with a visit to our local Home Depot, where I picked up bagged compost, aged steer manure, bone meal and blood meal.

Earlier, we had ripped out what was left of our summer vegetable garden, leaving only our basil and oregano plants behind.  Since I had removed the shade cloth from the garden, I put in two plastic chairs to protect the basil and oregano from the sun.

We added a 3 inch layer of compost and 3 inches of aged steer manure.  Then I sprinkled both blood and bone meal on top.  We then lightly raked the layers together and then waited a week before planting our vegetable seeds.

Fall vegetable garden

Fall vegetable garden

We placed stepping stones through the middle so that we will have easy access to our vegetables.

Fall vegetable garden

I buy my seeds from different sources.  I have Burpee, some from Botanical Interesta, but I usually buy mine at the local Big Box store.

We decided to plant cucumbers, carrots, green onions, spinach, leaf lettuce and cauliflower.

I let each of the kids pick out what kind of seed they wanted to plant.

Fall vegetable garden

Decisions, decisions….

Planting Vegetable Seed

Planting Vegetable Seed

Gracie loves carrots, so that is what she picked to plant.

My son, Kai, planted the green onions and my daughter, Ruthie, planted the lettuce.

I finished up planting the rest of the seeds, using my top secret vegetable garden tool. 

I will share my special tool with you soon 🙂

Fall vegetable garden

Fall vegetable garden

 I had planted the sweet corn a few weeks ago, since they need to be in the ground by the end of August for best results.

So, do you know what you will be doing today?

I will be stepping out in to my vegetable garden, seeing what seedlings have started to sprout.

Stay tuned for how to plant garlic and learn about my ‘secret’ gardening tool.

********************

I hope you all had a great weekend and are off to a good start for the week.

**THERE ARE 2 DAYS LEFT TO ENTER YOUR MONTHLY GARDEN BOUQUET FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER.**

Please email me a photo of your bouquet, or leave me a link to your blog post with you bouquet in the comments section of this post.  I will then feature your bouquet and a link back to your blog.

I hope you decide to take the time to send me your bouquet.  I do enjoy seeing the beautiful flowers from your garden 🙂

Time To Plant Vegetables Already?

Vegetable Harvest With Some Little Helpers….

In my last post, I showed you how my vegetable garden had gone crazy growing a multitude of different vegetables.  I had the remainder of my winter vegetables ready to harvest as well as pull out.

So over the weekend, I put my kids to work helping me in the garden.

First off, I had to pull out our spinach and lettuce plants that we had enjoyed eating since last October.  You know, it is so hard to have to buy lettuce in the supermarket when I have gotten used to getting it from my own backyard 🙂

Old spinach growing in front of my garlic plants

Old spinach growing in front of my garlic plants.

I love how easy it is to pull them out.

my winter vegetables ready to harvest

My winter vegetables

We collected all of the lettuce and spinach that we pulled and gave it to my mother for her compost pile.  It is really embarrassing that I do not compost, but I have plans to start.

my winter vegetables ready to harvest

Now for the fun part….my son Kai got in the garden and started to pull out our garlic.

It is harder than it looks, but he got it out.

my winter vegetables ready to harvest

Then it was my daughter, Ruthie’s turn.  I think this was our largest garlic.  

We were almost done, but my daughter Rachele pulled out the last few.

my winter vegetables ready to harvest

Now it was time to start pulling out the green onions.

my winter vegetables ready to harvest

You know what?  This is the absolutely the best part of having a vegetable garden – harvesting your vegetables and figuring out how you are going to prepare them.

tomatoes

I checked my cherry tomato plant and found some delicious tomatoes for our salad.

As we were harvesting our vegetables, my mother stopped by with some extra bush bean plants that she had left over after planting her vegetable garden, so now I had something to put in my newly bare areas.

my winter vegetables

It was a wonderful Saturday and I got to spend the afternoon with all of my kids, including my four daughters.

my winter vegetables

My youngest daughter, Gracie, tried to smile but couldn’t because she had 6 teeth pulled the day before and her mouth was a bit swollen.  By the way, she did great and is a real trooper.  Thank you for your thoughtful comments 🙂

Okay, so back to my vegetables.  I will let the garlic cure for 4 – 6 weeks in a cool, dark place before using.  Thankfully, my green onions are ready to use right now.  I think my homemade salsa sounds good right about now, don’t you?