Do you know how to give your spring onions a new lease on life?
Just recycle them.
I first heard this tip from Annette McFarlane who is a well known gardener, author and broadcaster in Brisbane. She is also a wonderful educator. I have attended lots of her gardening workshops put on by Brisbane City Council in libraries around town.
When you buy a bunch of spring onions just keep the roots and about 3 centimetres of the white part, plant them in the ground, and they’ll grow again. In fact you can see them sprouting green again in just a few days.
Have a look at these that I planted about four days ago. They’ll just grow like Topsy now and I can cut away at the green part ad-infinitum. Brilliant. No good of course if you want to use the white part too, but hey – how good is it to have the green parts to snip at to sprinkle over your salads, soups and stir fries.
Spring onions recycled
Check out this link to Fusian Living to learn more on the subject.
I was entertained by this blog The Art of Doing Stuff and her Great Onion Experiment. Which proves that you don’t need to go to all that trouble. Just stick ’em in the ground and they’ll grow, we don’t need to get too precious about it. It works.
Nigel, I did this post for you – just to prove that I have other things going round my head besides sweet potatoes and chokos!
Jenny and Steve, thanks for the spring onions. They live again!
Happy gardening.
Allotment Adventures with Jean 
Jun 30, 2013 @ 20:36:15
Have you done one about how wonderful worms are recently? I know we’ve talked about it but I can’t remember reading it.
Jul 01, 2013 @ 08:12:08
I havn’t written about worm farming yet Nigel. So thank you for the reminder. Watch this space!
Jul 01, 2013 @ 06:52:51
Great idea Jean. My daughters are in love with Korean food and use a whole lot of spring onions. They will be most happy to learn this frugal tip :).
Jul 01, 2013 @ 08:20:22
Pleased to hear that this tip has been useful Fran. I come from a family who love ‘free’ food. Years ago Mother used to pick nettles to make wine, my Aunty took me blackberrying along the country lanes and we made blackberry and apple jam. So the gene is in me.
Jul 01, 2013 @ 15:14:25
The same here Jean. mum was a great forager and often foraged things from peoples fences and made them appear in her garden ;). We always had a passionfruit vine (usually banana as over in W.A. they aren’t able to go nuts like they do here), some sort of berry (usually a loganberry), at least a couple of fruit trees, some cape gooseberries (funny how when they get called “Aztec berries” they can charge a whole lot more for them isn’t it? 😉 ) and lots of veggies. I can’t remember a house without some sort of cuttings going on and some form of food being produced usually from thin air 🙂
Jul 01, 2013 @ 19:26:10
My mother was a great forager too. She always kept a pair of scissors in her bag and often came back home from a walk with little cuttings in her pocket. Very naughty really, but she could grow pretty well anything for a bit of a clipping. And she just couldn’t resist the temptation.
Jul 01, 2013 @ 19:45:15
Sounds like our mums come from common stock Jean ;). My grandmother (mums mum) came from Oldham Lancs and my nan (dad’s mum) came from Bolton. The rest of my parentage is a mix of German and Scotts which would go part way to explaining why I am the way that I am! 😉
Jul 01, 2013 @ 14:07:33
Hi Jean, I was hoping to get in touch with you about a potential radio interview – can you please email me with your contact details? danielle.johnson@fairfaxmedia.com.au. Thanks! Dani
Jul 01, 2013 @ 15:30:26
Thank you for the invitation Dani.
I look forward to the interview in the morning. Best wishes.Jean
Jul 06, 2013 @ 17:35:55
Thank you for the Pingback Lois. Delighted to be included in your Friday Faves.