Life of a Plant Mom
With quarantine in full force and way too much free time on my hands, I found myself picking up random hobbies every so often … typically inspired by TikTok. I tried fuse bead art to create Pokemon figures, attempted to recreate Bob Ross paintings, and even picked up virtual Zumba. Unfortunately, with my non-committal attitude, many of these activities only stuck around for a few days before I moved on to the next big thing. One day, while I was on my endless search for inspiration, the TikTok algorithm kept showing me random… plant videos. It would range anywhere from people planting pumpkins and sunflowers around their local community to cutting off leftover cabbage butts. Now, all of these were pretty exciting ventures but the one that stood out the most was green onion planting.
I would like to go off the record and say that I have personally never been able to keep a plant alive but somehow the one plant that I have been able to maintain is a green onion. And there’s a couple reasons why.
- You just have to water once in the beginning.
- It rewards you with a beautifully grown green onion within just two weeks.
Literally, all you have to do is leave 2 inches of the root of your green onion, fill a mason jar up with 3-4 inches of soil, water it, and leave it in there for two weeks— guaranteed success. Ever since then, life just hasn’t been the same. I went from one green one, to two, to three, and now my entire balcony is filled with green onion buds. This is a great and simple way to regrow and replenish your onions and can definitely be something that you can easily expand within your home.
Despite only being together for 2 weeks, the growth of the green onion marked the start of my journey as a quarantine plant mom. Since then, I have been on the search to adopt other easy to grow fruits and veggies within my home garden. Through my thorough TikTok research, here are some easy ways to start your plant parent journey as well!
- Guide to Becoming a Quarantine Plant Parent –
- Choose your plant-child: Green Onion (2-3 weeks), Mint (varies), Lettuce (1-2 months), Spinach (1-2 months), Thyme (2-3 weeks)
- Purchase gardening soil either online or at your local grocery store.
- Prepare a container (pot, mason jar, cups) to store your plant seed and soil.
For many of the listed plant options above, you can technically utilize used parts and leftovers from your food preparation (ie: green onion). However, it may be easier to purchase a relatively grown mint, lettuce, spinach, or thyme plant from your local grocery store. Honestly, when it comes to growing plants, the hardest part for me was the initial planting process. Many of the plants listed above are all extremely low maintenance, needing minimal sunlight and slight watering whenever the soil may be dry. Gardening doesn’t always have to be hard! I know that when I first encountered those videos, my first thought was: that could never be me. But look at me now, a proud quarantine plant mom that wishes you the best in your future plant adventures. I’m rooting for you!
