Growing Onions Indoors

Every day Northview gets a number of hits from people looking to grow lettuce and carrots indoors. We have done both with good success and in fact found the task surprisingly easy.

This year we tried a new "in house" crop. Walking onions, or top onions, (those big eclectic critters that perpetuate themselves by growing little onions on their tops and dropping them to root and grow new plants), thrive in a number of large clumps around the yard (will share if you are local and want some).

Thus last spring I planted some in an ordinary dollar store hanging basket in plain dirt and let them take care of themselves all summer. Last fall I brought them in, fed them a little fertilizer and stuck them in the kitchen. No special lighting, they aren't even in a window, no special care. (Although we do dump the coffee grounds in the pot when Liz makes "real" coffee).

They have thrived and we have had all the green onion tops we could use. Last week during the thaw I spotted a handful of last year's top bulbs that had melted up out of the snow, so I started a second basket. They sprouted brisk growth in four days and will be ready to join the ongoing harvest in another week or so.

I have always gone outside whenever the snow was low and chopped off a few stems, but having them flourishing indoors is wonderful. Soup, stew, whatever, it just looks (and tastes) better with little green rings of fresh onion floating on top.

We also added a bucket of parsley to the pot of chives that has been spending summers out and winters in for years. We solved the problems we have had with the parsley bringing in a healthy crop of nasty insect pets like white flies and mealy bugs by letting it freeze good and hard and then bringing it in. Not a bug in sight and lots of tasty green for cooking.



If any of you have other ideas for growing food plants indoors I would sure love to hear them. It is terrific to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs that don't cost the earth because they are out of season.