This is one of my favorite money saving tips because it’s so easy and it makes me feel like I’m getting more bang for my buck. Did you know you can easily regrow some veggies, herbs or fruit from scraps? I love to do this with green onions because they grow quickly and they are so low maintenance.
Leave about an inch of the white part of your green onion down to the roots when you’re chopping them up for your recipe.
Place in a mason jar or small cup with a little water- I like to use enough to cover the roots, but not so much the onion wants to go floating away. Then…and this is the important part…leave it alone!
That’s right, at this point it’s completely hands off. You literally don’t have to do another thing- just check every couple of days to make sure that your onion(s) haven’t run out of water. That’s right- you can keep adding scraps to the same jar! No worries. Just make sure to give them a little room- ie don’t pack the jar full.
This is after approximately a week of sitting on my window sill. I added a second piece of onion to my jar. Now at this point, you can plant them in a small pot, where they will grow sturdier and stronger- but it’s winter here and I don’t want a ton of pots cluttering up every available window sill, so I will leave these guys in their mason jar. It’s nice to see something green and growing when it’s dreary and cold outside. If you really want to, you can also fill your jar with dirt and plant one onion per pint jar. It’s up to you guys, live your life.
My babies aren’t so little anymore! After a week and a half, we’ve got significant growth. I’ve found that the ones that grow just on water tend to have a milder flavor and grow smaller. Come Spring, these will be replanted in dirt if the roots and bulb still seem to be in good health. If not, that’s ok too! We still got more bang out of our buck when buying green onions, because I can harvest my mason jar plants whenever I need them- and no emergency trips to the store because I’ve realized I don’t have enough for my recipe.
You can do this with a ton of things- 2 inches or so of romaine stem, an inch or two of the bottom part of celery, big onions (the root side), pineapple (the top), mint, basil, cilantro- most require moving to soil within a few days, so pin this post and come back to it this Spring when it’s warm enough to let your babies flourish outside!