One of the yellow onions I'd bought from Harris Teeter had been left unused for too long. It wasn't rotting or foul or ready for the compost. It was growing. A five inch long shoot stuck out like a green spear from the non-rooted end, as despite a lack of water or soil, the life was still strong within it.
Maybe, I thought, that one needs to be planted. I took a trowel, wandered outside, and plopped it into the soil of an unused corner of my four by eight garlic bed. I watered it, then left it to its own devices.
If it grew, it grew. If it didn't, no harm, no foul.
As the weather has warmed, it's thriving. I soon realized that atop the now two-foot long primary shoot and another secondary shoot, a scape had formed. The scape looked remarkably like a wee little onionette sitting atop the shoot.That meant it was going to flower, and if it flowered, it was going to seed. Or so I assumed, having only ever grown spring onions before.
A little Googling revealed that onions have, like many similar plants, a two year life cycle. Year one, the energy pours into the root, which grows fat and tasty. Year two, that energy-dense root pours all of the stored life into flowering bodies, which create the seeds that will continue the process.
Meaning, I might be able to get an entire bed worth of onions, if I seed-save it. This seemed a lovely prospect, and so I've waited and watched as the scape has grown, the outer onionskin thinning, tiny little buds forming into what will be a lovely white chrysanthemum-esque blossom.
It's just bursting open now, and as a hundred little buds prepare to spread their petals, I'm eager to see how it progresses.
Remarkable, how much happens in the garden if you simply leave things to live as God intends.
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