Planting Onions That Have Sprouted

As this is my first spring in my very own house (!!!), I have decided to start a garden.  I have grown a few things in the past but it has mostly been herbs by the kitchen window or a hanging fern on the back patio.  This year I have decided to grow as much as I can on my I-just-bought-a-house budget.  My goal was to regrow vegetables from kitchen scraps as seen on this article from Buzzfeed.  The scallions and celery were the easiest thing I have ever tried to grow (it says celery is more difficult than scallions but I beg to differ.  So I moved on to onions.

My family is Lebanese so onions are the base of almost every savory thing I ate growing up.  Garlic and lemon were a close second.  So I knew that I had to try this onion replanting.  The buzzfeed article says to just cut off the root end of the onion and stick it in the ground.  I did some research and finally settled on a method by Anktangle where she waited for an onion to sprout on its own.  This is where my story comes into play.

First, I went to the grocery store and rooted around (ha!) in the organic yellow onion bin for a sprouted onion.  I found three but chose the one that had no bruises or marks.

Then I moved on to what I believe to be the hardest part so far: peeling and cutting the onion without damaging the tender green sprouts.  I first made a few shallow cuts vertically down the onion.  Then I carefully peeled away all the layers so all that was left was a delicios container of onion peelings for dinner, and a sprout with the roots of the onion still attached to the bottom.

Then, I planted it in about 6 inches of fertilizer and added about an inch of fertilizer to just cover up the roots of the onion.

Now we will wait and see.  Every I have read said that the green sprouts will eventually grow flowers and that is where you can harvest seeds and plant them for next years onion.  This year will only yield green sprouts (scallions) at full term.  However, a few sites have also mentioned that if you cut off the flowers as soon as you see them, then the onion will produce a bulb since it no longer needs to flower.  I am unsure yet which I will be doing this year.  Maybe I will buy another sprouted onion and do one of both.  I will keep updating this as the week go on.

Side note:

Scallion:  Cut off all but 2 or 3 inches by the root.  Put in a glass with 1 or 2 inches of water.  Place on windowsill.  Change water every 4 days.  Rinse and repeat.  These are my scallions after 10 days in the cup.  You can also see where I originally cut the scallions because the skin looks a little darker.