Hi All,

I have planted the bottom 3" of white onions from
the grocery store before and have had wonderful
results. Onion tops all summer and winter.

I pull one all the way out yesterday to help
overcrowding, and cut off the lower 3" and
two more 3" cuts above that and planted
all three.

Now I had to laugh at myself. The bottom nub
will definitely grow and it is easy to tell
up from down. But the other two, probably won't
grow anyway (I had to check). But what was funny
was I forgot to mark upper from lower and just
stuck then in however. If they grow, it will
be like sticking garlic bulbs in upside down.

Chuckle,

-T

T wrote:
....

i would not expect anything to grow that does not
contain some part of the base plate of the bulb (
where the roots come out).

you may be able to get other pieces to form roots
if you culture them in some medium with specific
hormones to encourage cell division and differentiation
to get them to set up shop like the roots would but
really that's way outside the scope of many simple
gardeners.

the easiest manner to do what you want is to take
the stem and cut it in half and poke it in the
ground and keep it moist enough that it doesn't
dry out completely.

also remember when taking cuttings of many sorts
that there is the idea that the top of the plant
in terms of size and demand is similar to what is
left of the roots below taking into consideration
some root mortality. to make that simpler, it
often helps to trim off some of the leaves above
to let the roots below not have to keep up with
extreme demands until they can get established
again.

oh, and often it's a good idea to put such
cuttings in some shade or dappled light where it
is cooler and not so demanding until they're
showing some signs of actively growing again.

songbird

On 2023-07-01, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> wrote:

> also remember when taking cuttings of many sorts
> that there is the idea that the top of the plant
> in terms of size and demand is similar to what is
> left of the roots below taking into consideration
> some root mortality. to make that simpler, it
> often helps to trim off some of the leaves above
> to let the roots below not have to keep up with
> extreme demands until they can get established
> again.

2nd year in a row I'm trying to grow cuttings from a mock orange bush
growing on the other side of my fence in the park that some now gone
crappy neighbors kids nearly destroyed. nursery told me to use soft wood
(new growth) cuttings in the spring, hard wood if doing in the fall.
last year without putting much thought into it I took a bunch of cuttings
just above nodes (yeah, I know, dumbass did a dumb lol), trimmed off the
lower leaves, dipped them in Bonide rooting hormone, stuck them in a mix
of coco coir and sand in a plastic tote with a lid, drilled for a bit of
ventilation and set in dappled sun under a tree and kept them moist by
misting with a spray bottle for months. nothing ever happened except the
leaves rotting or getting a fungus and falling off. see ima dumbass above.

this year same thing except i did some braining and cut BELOW the nodes.
lol. and used fresh sterile rooting medium. your mention of trimming
off the leaves got me thinking again. i just went and re-read the info on
growing from cuttings on several .edu sites and a couple mentioned
trimming leaves in half but not removing them besides what goes into
the soil. on soft wood cuttings anyway, seems there'd want to be some
photosynthesis happening to help to shoots root. the leaves were left
whole but today i'm going to trim them in half per the docs.

process seems to be working this year, several of the cuttings give a
bit of resistance when tugged on. :)

ob edible:

first harvest out of the vegetable garden last week. scapes off about
110 garlic plants. cut them up in several inch long pieces, flash froze
on cookie sheets, and stored in a large zipper bag to be used mainly on
salads and occasionally for pesto. yummy.

--
SDF Public Access UNIX System - https://sdf.org

fos@sdf.org wrote:
....
> this year same thing except i did some braining and cut BELOW the nodes.
> lol. and used fresh sterile rooting medium. your mention of trimming
> off the leaves got me thinking again. i just went and re-read the info on
> growing from cuttings on several .edu sites and a couple mentioned
> trimming leaves in half but not removing them besides what goes into
> the soil. on soft wood cuttings anyway, seems there'd want to be some
> photosynthesis happening to help to shoots root. the leaves were left
> whole but today i'm going to trim them in half per the docs.

yes, you do not remove all leaves, but some, it really
does depend upon the plant too as some are more easily
done than others. you learn by experience but also look
things up and go from there.

> process seems to be working this year, several of the cuttings give a
> bit of resistance when tugged on. :)

:) good deal! :) i go by watching and seeing if there
is any new growth. once i see new growth then i transition
to their more natural future setting environment so that when
they are transplanted they've got a chance to survive. after
transplanting they need to be kept watered enough for some
time (again i go by when i see new growth as to how well the
plant might be doing).

> ob edible:
>
> first harvest out of the vegetable garden last week. scapes off about
> 110 garlic plants. cut them up in several inch long pieces, flash froze
> on cookie sheets, and stored in a large zipper bag to be used mainly on
> salads and occasionally for pesto. yummy.

i'm seeing some peas and beans and snacked on a few pods
today. :)

i always have enough demand for garlic starts that i leave
all the scapes alone. in the kind of garlic i grow the scapes
can be large enough to be worth eating or using to start new
bulbs. i have some from the garlic i harvested last season
which look pretty good considering how long they've been in
storage. they'll get used up eventually for cooking. garlic
is yum indeed and i also like green garlic but have found out
i'm usually too busy to deal with it so i didn't plant any
this past year for harvest this year.

songbird

And I have gotten even sillier.

I harvested a big white onion and cut the
bottom six inches off. Then I clicked it
up the middle. I planted the two halves.

This will be "interesting".

T wrote:

> And I have gotten even sillier.
>
> I harvested a big white onion and cut the
> bottom six inches off. Then I clicked it
> up the middle. I planted the two halves.
>
> This will be "interesting".

you could cut most of the bulb off and
use the base plate (the part which attaches
to the roots) for starting new plants by cutting
it into multiple parts (like quarters or eighths
depending upon how big it is) and replant those
down about an inch. keep moist. some should
regrow.

though likely what will happen is that next
year if you leave the results outside to
overwinter is that you will get onions that
flower and not the more simple bulbs that come
from first year seeds or starts.

all in my experience...

in my onion patch this year almost every
onion that overwintered has been flowering
this year. i think it is because it has been
so hot and so dry. i do plant onion starts
and also some onions from seeds, but i did
not plant any fresh seeds this spring so i
have mostly flowers in what i was hoping to
be more of a mixed garden.

the other day i already cut off the seed
heads from the earliest flowering green onions
that i grow. tons of seeds. i won't even
bother to sift them to remove chaff as i'll
just shake the heads and use the seeds that
easily fall off and discard the rest.

it will be several weeks yet before i get
the later bulbing onion seed heads harvested.

songbird