Last Year Onions Growing Again

[Mike]

Last year we put up some onions. We thought they were all gone but this weekend I went into where they were stored and found a few that had been left uneaten.

Keep in mind they're in a place with no light, so I'm not sure how this happened, but they're growing!

My question is, what can be done with these? Can we still eat them? Should we put them in the ground and let them grow again until the tops die off? Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Here's a look at one of them. We have like 8-10 of these.

 

[Meadowlark]

Growing onions from an onion is a great way to use those that have sprouted in storage.

The onions shown below were harvested from a previous onion crop that sprouted in storage and was re-planted in the winter. They looked just like the onion in the op's photo...except yellow onions not red.

These small bulbs will not store long, and hence, most will be chopped and frozen for use in cooking later.

Don't throw out the sprouted ones but if in season, plant them.

 

[Mike]

It might still be too cold to plant them right now, and we're expecting another cold front at the end of the week. After that, though, if they're still looking good we can probably put them in the ground, or in a container.

Another question, do I just plant them how they are or do I need to remove the skin, or cut them up, or anything like that?

 

[Meadowlark]

I generally remove any dead skins and just plant.

What variety of red onion?

 

[Mike]

I generally remove any dead skins and just plant.

What variety of red onion?

I, honestly, have no idea. It's just whatever we could get last year. I didn't pay attention to any of the varieties of anything we bought last year. The only thing I could tell you is that we planted straight eight cucumbers and national pickling cucumbers. Other than that, everything else was just grab whatever they had that sounded good at the time.