This is my white onion, Shrek.
He started on the counter and was neglected and grew a bit out of hand. We felt he earned his place in the world and potted him. He's been doing really well, but I want to grow him into more bulbs and I'm not exactly sure how to do that.
I'd prefer to keep Shrek indoors because I am disabled and getting outside to take care of him would not be accessible for me. Any tips and next steps would be great. Thanks.
by ExpressionFit8195
4 Comments
Unfortunately the only thing Shrek will grow for you is more onion greens, and if you are lucky, onion seeds that you could plant and those would make you actual onion bulbs.
Onions from seed take a LONG time to grow though, as in people are starting them in our area now and will harvest in August.
They do need full, bright sun, so to grow indoors you would likely need to supplement with grow lights.
Edit: words
Give him a light. Let it flower. See if you can get the seeds to form via pollination. Let the seed head dry on the stalk. Collect seeds. Save seeds. Start new seeds the following spring.
Just enjoy Shrek. He’s retired.
Do you know what kind of onion it is? I’ve had trouble growing onions in the past so I’ve been doing a bit of research on them the past few days.
From what I’ve read onions only produce a bulb when they have a certain amount of daylight. That could range from ~11 hours for short day onions to ~14 hours for long day onions. You want the onion to be pretty big before it grows a bulb. Yours seems pretty healthy already. This onion seems like it might already have a bulb though? I’m not sure how that would impact things.
I don’t think onions usually divide themselves so the only way to get more bulbs is to let it go to seed, and plant the seeds. If it does seed you’ll need to make sure the flowers are pollinated. Onions are biennials. I’m guessing Shrek was started last year? That means that this year it’ll produce seeds at some point.