My silly test

T wrote: ...

i would not expect anything to grow that does not contain some part of the base plate of the bulb ( where the roots come out).

you may be able to get other pieces to form roots if you culture them in some medium with specific hormones to encourage cell division and differentiation to get them to set up shop like the roots would but really that's way outside the scope of many simple gardeners.

the easiest manner to do what you want is to take the stem and cut it in half and poke it in the ground and keep it moist enough that it doesn't dry out completely.

also remember when taking cuttings of many sorts that there is the idea that the top of the plant in terms of size and demand is similar to what is left of the roots below taking into consideration some root mortality. to make that simpler, it often helps to trim off some of the leaves above to let the roots below not have to keep up with extreme demands until they can get established again.

oh, and often it's a good idea to put such cuttings in some shade or dappled light where it is cooler and not so demanding until they're showing some signs of actively growing again.

songbird

2nd year in a row I'm trying to grow cuttings from a mock orange bush growing on the other side of my fence in the park that some now gone crappy neighbors kids nearly destroyed. nursery told me to use soft wood (new growth) cuttings in the spring, hard wood if doing in the fall. last year without putting much thought into it I took a bunch of cuttings just above nodes (yeah, I know, dumbass did a dumb lol), trimmed off the lower leaves, dipped them in Bonide rooting hormone, stuck them in a mix of coco coir and sand in a plastic tote with a lid, drilled for a bit of ventilation and set in dappled sun under a tree and kept them moist by misting with a spray bottle for months. nothing ever happened except the leaves rotting or getting a fungus and falling off. see ima dumbass above.

this year same thing except i did some braining and cut BELOW the nodes. lol. and used fresh sterile rooting medium. your mention of trimming off the leaves got me thinking again. i just went and re-read the info on growing from cuttings on several .edu sites and a couple mentioned trimming leaves in half but not removing them besides what goes into the soil. on soft wood cuttings anyway, seems there'd want to be some photosynthesis happening to help to shoots root. the leaves were left whole but today i'm going to trim them in half per the docs.

process seems to be working this year, several of the cuttings give a bit of resistance when tugged on. :)

ob edible:

first harvest out of the vegetable garden last week. scapes off about

110 garlic plants. cut them up in several inch long pieces, flash froze on cookie sheets, and stored in a large zipper bag to be used mainly on salads and occasionally for pesto. yummy.

snipped-for-privacy@sdf.org wrote: ...

yes, you do not remove all leaves, but some, it really does depend upon the plant too as some are more easily done than others. you learn by experience but also look things up and go from there.

:) good deal! :) i go by watching and seeing if there is any new growth. once i see new growth then i transition to their more natural future setting environment so that when they are transplanted they've got a chance to survive. after transplanting they need to be kept watered enough for some time (again i go by when i see new growth as to how well the plant might be doing).

i'm seeing some peas and beans and snacked on a few pods today. :)

i always have enough demand for garlic starts that i leave all the scapes alone. in the kind of garlic i grow the scapes can be large enough to be worth eating or using to start new bulbs. i have some from the garlic i harvested last season which look pretty good considering how long they've been in storage. they'll get used up eventually for cooking. garlic is yum indeed and i also like green garlic but have found out i'm usually too busy to deal with it so i didn't plant any this past year for harvest this year.

songbird

And I have gotten even sillier.

I harvested a big white onion and cut the bottom six inches off. Then I clicked it up the middle. I planted the two halves.

This will be "interesting".

you could cut most of the bulb off and use the base plate (the part which attaches to the roots) for starting new plants by cutting it into multiple parts (like quarters or eighths depending upon how big it is) and replant those down about an inch. keep moist. some should regrow.

though likely what will happen is that next year if you leave the results outside to overwinter is that you will get onions that flower and not the more simple bulbs that come from first year seeds or starts.

all in my experience...

in my onion patch this year almost every onion that overwintered has been flowering this year. i think it is because it has been so hot and so dry. i do plant onion starts and also some onions from seeds, but i did not plant any fresh seeds this spring so i have mostly flowers in what i was hoping to be more of a mixed garden.

the other day i already cut off the seed heads from the earliest flowering green onions that i grow. tons of seeds. i won't even bother to sift them to remove chaff as i'll just shake the heads and use the seeds that easily fall off and discard the rest.

it will be several weeks yet before i get the later bulbing onion seed heads harvested.

songbird