Superplants
Feb. 3rd, 2008 15:42![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillI've said it before, I'll say it again: alliums are the toughest crop plants ever.
I've known for some time that the way to get green onions for your garden (should you like such things) is to go crisper- or dumpster-diving for that old, bedraggled, abandoned bunch that no one wants. Wash off the rotten bits, stick them in the ground... a few weeks later, they're thriving. A few months later, you have colonies.
Garlic? Grab a wrinkled, sprouting head from the back of the counter, break the cloves apart and stick them in the ground somewhere. Nine months later you have more garlic. Shallots are the same way. Onions, being biennials, are a PITA, but you can still get lovely flowers (and seeds for next year) by "rescuing" old onions that have sprouted in the pantry. Once established, chives will survive a nuclear holocaust.
Leeks take the cake, though. I had a yogurt cup full of leek sprouts that had been in my light rack for four months, with only a little bit of nutrition (I hit them with Miracle Gro a few times, but the mix was just perlite and vermiculite), erratic water, and all their leafy comrades dead of neglect. What were they doing? Putting out new leaves to replace those that died during the last drought. (I was a little too busy for a couple of weeks.) I stuck them in pots today, six per five-gallon bucket. I expect they'll take off rapidly, without ever holding a grudge for past treatment.
The single rule for alliums: white end down, green end up. If you break that one, they'll usually manage anyway.
I've known for some time that the way to get green onions for your garden (should you like such things) is to go crisper- or dumpster-diving for that old, bedraggled, abandoned bunch that no one wants. Wash off the rotten bits, stick them in the ground... a few weeks later, they're thriving. A few months later, you have colonies.
Garlic? Grab a wrinkled, sprouting head from the back of the counter, break the cloves apart and stick them in the ground somewhere. Nine months later you have more garlic. Shallots are the same way. Onions, being biennials, are a PITA, but you can still get lovely flowers (and seeds for next year) by "rescuing" old onions that have sprouted in the pantry. Once established, chives will survive a nuclear holocaust.
Leeks take the cake, though. I had a yogurt cup full of leek sprouts that had been in my light rack for four months, with only a little bit of nutrition (I hit them with Miracle Gro a few times, but the mix was just perlite and vermiculite), erratic water, and all their leafy comrades dead of neglect. What were they doing? Putting out new leaves to replace those that died during the last drought. (I was a little too busy for a couple of weeks.) I stuck them in pots today, six per five-gallon bucket. I expect they'll take off rapidly, without ever holding a grudge for past treatment.
The single rule for alliums: white end down, green end up. If you break that one, they'll usually manage anyway.