Green Onion Project

Part of the Sheffers' overall plan involves growing as much of our own produce as possible. Here's the rub. Charlie has a fair bit of experience getting veggies and such to grow, but he works a lot and doesn't have much time to devote to the garden. Sarah has plenty of time to work in a garden, but she has a history of killing every single plant that she has ever had. The solution, of course, is for Charlie to do what he can when he can while Sarah learns to keep plants alive long enough to get food from them. However, considering that Sarah has regularly killed "very hardy" plants, a better plan than "do better" is going to need to be employed. Enter: Science. Sarah can totally monitor a long term science experiment. The Green Onion Project, while a boring name, is the first of what we hope to be many experiments and projects in food production.

The Green Onion Project started because Sarah had read a bunch of times that it is possible to sprout and grow green onions from the "waste" from some green onions purchased in the produce department. So, low financial risk on this attempt. Sounds like a good place to start. The little root ends were placed in water and left on the kitchen counter to see what happens.

Here's Day 2, and you can already see the difference between where they were cut and how much they have grown.

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Day 6. The toaster to the left gives you an idea of plant height at this point.

Day 12. Lots of growth, but they are starting to look a bit sickly. It probably doesn't help that there is very little sunlight in the kitchen. Today, Sarah splurged and bought a daylight bulb setup. This $10 is the first cost for the project.

Day 17. Five days with the light has really made these green up. They're looking pretty healthy and may have set a record for Sarah keeping a plant alive.

Day 18. Onions were transplanted into soil. (Another $2 invested since there is not easy access to dirt in January in Wisconsin. At $12, this free project is starting to get expensive. At least most of it is reusable if it doesn't work in the end.) They are looking pretty pathetic...it seems, those rubber bands holding them together were doing a lot more than it appeared. This is much closer to the way that Sarah's plants normally look....except they're not dried out, brown, and dead quite yet.

Day 29: Alive and growing like crazy.

We have decided to declare the Green Onion project to be a success. Sarah managed to keep something green alive for a whole 4 weeks, and we now have yummy food growing in our house! It's a tiny first step on our trek toward a more self-sufficient and sustainable lifestyle.

Note: A special thank you goes out to everyone who put up with Sarah's excitement for the last month as she managed to keep a plant alive. We love you lots.

God Bless!