Wednesday, February 10, 2010

How To Plant Spring Onions

Though the title above may be about spring onions, it has nothing to do with a step by step guide on how to plant spring onions :D But it has everything to do with my new hobby of trying to be an amateur gardener. Yes, I am now trying to plant my own vegetables. I've no idea if it's going to be successful or not but I intend to give it a go anyway.

You see, whenever wifey and me do our weekly grocery shopping we're always disappointed by the quality of fresh vegetables that we find out there. In fact calling them fresh is not the proper word. Most of you, especially my long time readers would know that I always shop at hypermarkets and the hypermarkets I shop at with the exception of one of them leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to getting fresh vegetables.

Most of the vegetables we find there are pretty pathetic and no matter how early we go, we still don't get fresh vegetables. By the time we get back and clean out the yellowish or wilted portions, we'd end up with half of what we bought. Both wifey and me happen to eat lots of vegetables these days and getting them fresh is of paramount importance to us.

I know we could always go to the wet markets and they would probably have much fresher stock of vegetables but I hate walking around in the stinky slosh of those wet markets which is why hypermarkets are our number one destination for grocery shopping. Besides the kids would grumble quote a bit if we took them to the wet markets.

Just the other day wifey and me were shopping and complaining about the freshness of the vegetables we find on the racks and I suggested that maybe I should try growing my own spring onions. I mean how hard can it be right? And it would be so much fresher too. When we reached home, I thought I's start with trying to plant some spring onions seeing as how we all (the boys included) eat spring onions like snacks in this house.

 So I cut off the roots and looked around for a pot, added some earth that we had lying around and stuffed the roots into the pot. Now, I definitely don't have a green thumb or anything. In fact the last time I tried to plant some flowers, it ended in disaster with the darn things dying and I was accused of homicide for murdering some innocent flowers by the garden police ... LOL! So I was kinda apprehensive this time around. Well, the planting of those roots didn't really pose too much of a problem.

 The newly planted spring onion stumps ...

I wasn't really expecting anything to come out of this experiment of mine but the moment I woke up the very next morning, I ran down to check my my little 'babies' without even giving wifey her customary good morning hug which elicited a stare from her ... LOL!

Lo and behold, I was shocked to see that instead of them lying dead, new shoots or whatever they're called had actually sprouted from the stumps I planted. You can see them circled out in the picture below. I was ecstatic and was jumping up and down like a little child screaming at wifey to come take a look. I'll bet the neighbours were probably wondering what the heck was going on in this household at 6.45 in the morning ... LOL!

 
The newly sprouted shoots ...

The spring onions I planted had actually sprouted a whole one inch in height over night! I was amazed. I was overjoyed. I'm a certified green thumbed gardener ... woohoo ... Ok, ok, maybe I was over reacting but you can't really blame me. For a guy who could kill plastic flowers this is a miracle of sorts ... LOL! I'm so excited that I'm now planning to plant more vegetables like chillies, long beans, etc, etc ... that is if I can get wifey to let me mess up the backyard ... LOL!

On the serious side, I'm actually excited by this new found hobby I have of wanting to plant my own vegetables. Beside the fact that I'll get to eat much fresher vegetables, I'll also be saving a heck of a lot of money from having to buy them. And the satisfaction of eating something you planted yourself is priceless :D The only huge obstacle I'm going to have is that my back yard is all cemented down with nary an inch of earth anywhere to be seen!

I guess I'm going to have to look for some of those square whatchamacallit containers that you plant stuff in to start my own backyard vegetable garden. Ok, now if you'll excuse me, I need to go water my spring onions and sing them a song to keep them happy ... LOL!
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16 comments:

  1. LOL. congratulations :P

    hey my parents have really ultra green fingers, they planted a bunch of stuff at home. eg passion fruits, one durian tree, few chili padi plants, tonnes of spring onions, aloe vera, alot of flowers and alot of vege. *proud*

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  2. Yey!Congratulations,Nick! :)

    i don't do much planting at home but my mom does. She plants ginger, spring onions,egg plant,cili padi etc..those that are easy to plant & doesn't require too much TLC..:)

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  3. Good for you! :)

    I used to have a green thumb. Used to because I have not planted anything in like 20 years oredi. :D

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  4. Xin - Wah, I probably need some tips from your parents :D So far I'm keeping my fingers crossed that these spring onions make it :D

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  5. Mama Mia - Really ah? I think I should try planting those too :D

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  6. Lina - LOL! I think I got a black thumb la ... most of my plating endeavors always ends in failure.

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  7. Great idea of growing your own spring onions! :)

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  8. Cool. Hypermarket veggies suck.... although they've got good variety.

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  9. Mei Teng - I'm just hoping it'll actually grow and not die off halway :D

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  10. Terra - It does suck big time which is why I'm experimenting with this :D

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  11. OMG!! Having a garden is GREAT and growing your own vegetables is awesome. Congrats on the spring onions sprouting an entire inch over night! WOOOT!

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  12. Meleah - It's much better than having to buy all those non fresh vegetables out there. Hopefully soon, I'll have a whole host of other veggies too :D

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  13. Dude!! Great minds do think alike lah...I was jsut telling wifey this weekend that I wanted to plant spring onions. Not becaue you can't find good stuff but because they die so fast. Anyway, I wanted to do the same thing...plant spring onions but forgot after we came back from Seansy's place. Coincidence?? "theme from twilight zone in the background" cheers!

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  14. Adrian - LOL! Great minds definitely do think alike! Go on and start planting, it can be addictive la :D

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  15. Woohoo! I can feel your excitement Nick!
    Now, that re-motivates me to plant my own vege as well. Well, not vege as in sayur sawi or cabbage la but just one that can be easily planted. You know, like spring onions!

    We have pandan leaves and lemon grass planted at home. They come in handy when cooking. :)

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  16. Carol - I think it's good to grow your own simple vegetables, kan :D I'm planning to plant kacang panjang but got n place la my house ...

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