The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa unveiled its new Poamoho Green Onion at a “Green Onion Release, Harvest and Share Day” July 23 at its Urban Garden Center in Pearl City. The new variety is designed to appeal to home gardeners who find it easier to grow them by splitting the clumps rather than propagating from seed like other green onion varieties.
I’ve had good luck with growing green onions from produce purchased from the grocery store by leaving about a half inch of the bottom white with roots, but I know that the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience’s plants are cultivated with Hawaii gardens in mind, and so I thought I’d like to try them. Besides, I love spending a couple hours getting my hands dirty in the garden!
Like other events I’ve attended at the Pearl City center, the green onion harvest was very educational for all levels of gardeners. I always learn something new at every workshop, even if it’s a basic one geared to beginning green thumbs.
Today I learned:
Green onions can successfully be grown in shallow trays, although if you want larger veggies, you’ll want to grow them in ground, a raised bed garden, or a deep pot. The trays I harvested green onions from today were about 3 inches deep.
When harvesting green onions, you just vigorously pull the bottom of the clump from the soil. Once you’ve pulled them out and brushed off soil from the roots, you pull apart the clump into individual stems. Prepare each green onion for planting by lopping off the green part, and you can trim the roots quite short (about ¾ of an inch).
The yellow/brown spots on the leaves often indicate thrips damage - but you can still eat it after washing.
Before we began harvesting, we were encouraged to sample the green onions at the office where staff had made a Tuna Tofu Salad that included the veggie.
The salad was quite delicious, especially with that soy sauce-sesame oil dressing, but I didn’t really taste the green onions. Don’t let your nose deceive you - despite the strong garlic smell of these green onions, the flavor profile is quite mild.
In the middle of the raised bed gardens, they had set up a fertilizer information station where you could get all your questions answered about how to set up your garden for success with the proper fertilizer. They even gave a small bag of fertilizer to take home with you!
That’s wasn’t all, however - they also gave out goodie bags with free green bean plants and there were tables with native and other plants you could take home with you! I happily picked up a ma’o hau hele (yellow hibiscus, the state flower of Hawaii) and pohinahina to add to my garden.
To learn more about the CTAHR Urban Garden Center, go to their website at cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/ougc