Spring onions, scallions, or eschallots are a very mild onion variety that is delicious in salads and in stir fries. We use them all the time in cooking because of their versatility. Easy to grow, and even easier to regrow.
Regrow? Yes, dear reader, regrow. You can even do this with store bought spring onions, as long as they have a little bit of root left on each plant.
Here is the method. When you cut the spring onion for cooking, leave approx 1 cm (1/2 inch) behind, and put them aside.
Put these discarded bottoms into a container with a little bit of water leaving the stem out of the water. Watch the onion begin to grow in a few days.
Once you have a little bit of growth, dig a small hole as deep as the roots and stem and plant the sprouted onion and backfill. Water well.
The picture above is the spring onion from the ramekin that I planted today. It will take off in about a week. Not much to this method really, but remember to keep it watered.
Here is a whole row of regrown spring onions in one of my veggie beds that I planted over the last two weeks. I have about 20 of these plants interspersed throughout this bed. If you want, you can plant them in clumps, but I had limited space so I just popped them in wherever there was room.
After about a month these spring onions will be ready to harvest again. The ultimate in vegetable reuse. I think vegetables are amazing!
Does anyone else have a method to regrow a vegetable that would otherwise be discarded?
Its a kind off regrow…. When I harvest my broccoli, I cut it above the next bud and leave them for another month, then I have broccolini, I kept 2 plants for over a year and they still produced fruit, it did get smaller and smaller but hey.. it was a unused part of the garden, I considered it a bonus
I do a similar thing, where I have a pot of spring onions that I harvest by cutting off at soil level and they regrow. Unfortunately I can’t remember where I read about the idea but I’ve had that pot going for over 6 months now and its brilliant. Like Gwen I also let broccoli side shoot, and will be trying the same thing with cauliflower as an experiment.
I have never heard of doing this, it’s brilliant. I am going to try as I have some spring onions in the fridge now.
With the spring onions I don’t bother putting them into water as you have done. They go straight into the ground and re-shoot in no time at all.
Great way to double your harvest Gav!
If you like green onions and shallots, I’d highly recommend Egyptian onions (aka Walking onion, Top onion or Tree onion). I started with about 6 plants last year as a test, and they’re so fun and weird to watch growing. This spring I divided the existing plants and spread out the new ones (they self-propagate) and I now have 25 plants. They’re perennial (and I live in zone 5a), they’re easy to grow (ignore them most of the time), and you can harvest both the green leaves or ‘shallot’ bulbs or top sets.
plants like rosemary will develop roots from a cutting, stick a dozen or so in a glass of water on the windowsill… and wait.
steve
I have tried this successfully in a pot. Just plonked them in about three years ago and they are still growing. In the garden, my spring onions grow like wildfire from the seeds. I posted a pic on my blog today 🙂 I believe celery can be done the same way 🙂
Have a great day Gavin, hope you got a nice lot of rain…we did!
x
Hi Gavin, I grew Florence fennel this year for the first time, I grew a bit too much and so consequently some were left in the ground to go to seed. We had a massive storm come through one night and they all got flattened. I have been a bit lazy with some of the beds and left the flattened fennel until I felt more able to get to it. Well to my surprise this week I noticed three new fennel bulbs growing from the broken bit above the root of the fennel plant. Amazing things veg!
Cheers
Jo in NZ
Hi Gavin, I had a bunch of shop bought shallots that I never used so I just planted them, they kept growing went to seed and multiplied. When I need shallots I’d just cut slightly below soil level. Also with my leeks I just cut below soil level and I have had a patch of leeks that keeps growing for about three years now.
Sue
I believe you can do the same with pineapples too. You chop the top part off and it gets replanted. It takes a few years but they will grow a whole new pineapple on top for you. 🙂
I’ve just planted potato onions which will multiply. They’re a dividing bulb and if I save some of the small ones from the harvest I can plant them the year after. Not quite the same but near enough. 😉
These aren’t scallions or eschallots those are a different type of onion. Scallions are the same as eschallots, not spring onions.
Perennial spinach can be also be divided simply by slicing through a rooted piece with a spade and replanting.
I always use the top half of an onion bulb first (the end that never had roots). If I don’t get to use it within the next couple of days I dig a hole about 6″ deep and bury the thing. Even festy, rotten ones will grow, and then you can collect the seeds and shoots.
If I have leftover spring onions I just stick em in the ground, too – the garden makes a great fridge.
Could carrots’ and radishes’ tops be used to regrow? .
Hi Padma, no unfortunately. You will only get leaf growth.
Padma, the leaves of the carrot top are great in salads and if you let them get to seed you can plant the seeds.
can you help me,,How to multiplier spring onions?
I was pulling up weedy grass in my front garden and noticed that actually a lot of these sprouts are scallions… can I pull them up and replant them elsewhere (they’re maybe 20cm tall and not big enough to eat – but they don’t look very nice out the front)?
Yes, you can transplant them.
thanks for the tip. When is the best time to do this? or is it worth trying any time?
You can do the same with store bought celery. Put the celery in a cup with a little water and cut the stalks as you need them, but leave about an inch at the bottom. Leave the bottom piece in a little water and then into soil when it has grown some roots (few days). Then, when you have a new celery plant, harvest on a cut and come again basis, rather than destructively (as they do for the supermarket).
I have successfully done this with leeks. The first leek that I did this with, I turned into a beautiful leek and potato soup last week. I decide to try this with spring onions today. Within a few hours of cutting them and putting them in water I can already notice that the cut surface is not even and a shoot is starting to come.
My initial leek I didn’t pull out but cut off about 2 cm above the ground and it has already started to regrow. I needed a second leek for the soup so I found a fruit and vegetable shop where they still have the roots and it has already been planted in the garden. There is space on the either side of where I planted it so my new spring onions will be placed there.