If you’re composting your gardening scraps, then you’re already in the habit of recycling. But did you know that some of those leftovers can actually be used to produce more plants? It’s true. We’ve listed 7 of the most popular vegetables and fruits that can be re-grown from scraps. Now that’s recycling!
1) Potatoes
You can grow both white and sweet potatoes from their respective scraps. Find a 2-3 inch white potato with 1-2 eyes on it and allow it to dry thoroughly at room temperature. Plant in an 8-inch container and cover with 4 inches of soil. As more roots appear, add more soil. For sweet potatoes, take a different approach: bury an entire potato with many eyes.
2) Onions
Cover a ½ inch onion root with soil and leave in a sunny place. After watering as needed, you’ll notice how quickly these guys sprout.
3) Garlic
Plant a single clove with its root facing down. Some sunny time later, cut back its shoots and you’ll end up with a new, fresh garlic bulb.
4) Romaine lettuce
Place roots in a dish of water, but don’t fully submerge the entire plant. Spray with water once a week and keep in the sun.
5) Pineapple
Remove all fruit traces as well as the green stalks at the top of the plant. Cut sections horizontally from its crown until you see its root buds. Leave only about an inch of leaves at the base. Plant in a warm place with adequate drainage and water regularly. Once established, water less frequently (once per week). This requires a patient gardener, as your first harvest won’t appear for 2-3 years.
6) Celery
Similar to lettuce, put celery in a water-filled dish and cut stalks back to one inch above its roots. New celery will sprout with plenty of sun and a spritz of water once or twice per week.
7) Cabbage
Like lettuce, place cabbage roots in a bowl of water, being careful to keep standing water away from the rest of the plant. Hydrate the plant 1-2 times per week and keep in a sunny location.
Creative Commons Flickr photo courtesy of Mike Haller
Hi I live in eastern Kentucky and this is going to be my first year to try grow A garden , can I grow celery here , everyone I talk to said they never heard of it , so can you please help me
Why dont you try container growing it so you can try a few for experiment this spring?
Just place the stub of the celery in water. Change the water every day. In about a week it will start to grow roots. After about a month, when you have a few healthy roots transplant it into dirt. You can start snipping the leaves of the celery after about a month. The more you snip the fuller it gets.
Brenda, I know we’re a few states away, but feel free to check out my urban farming website, I post a lot of tips up there regularly. http://www.facebook.com/defarming
I’ve raised it many times here in west liberty, Ky. Make sure you keep piling dirt up around it to keep the stalks tender. The higher it grows, the higher the dirt needs to be piled around it. It is easy to grow. But it will all come in at one time . Plant what you need , then plant every week, or so to keep it going.
I would think you could grow Celery in Kentucky, as I have had luck in Wisconsin. The best luck is growing from scrap, since it requires a very long growing season to grow from seed. Do not expect it to grow as big as the celery you buy from the grocery store. I don’t think you have a long enough growing season. In wisconsin, to grow from seed, you need to start the seeds indoors on or about march 1st, then move outdoors about June first.
A few of my onions have started to sprout shoots at the tops, can I plant these and will the grow into another onion ? Regards Helen.
I think the onions will only produce a flower. Shallots and garlic will produce more bulbs. Life isn’t that simple sometimes though 🙂
http://www.anktangle.com/2011/03/growing-sprouted-onions.html
yes. Peel off the out layers of onion and use them as normal. When you get down closer to the bulb you can put this in water to root or plant directly in well draining soil. Keep the greens upright while growing and trim off any that bend over. When they turn brown and fall over that signals the plant it’s harvest time and it will develop the bulb. Harvest when all fronds are fully brown and dried. You can also cut off pieces of the fronds during growing season and use as green onions as well.
Yes the bulbs on top you can replant and they resprout themselves I got some from a fellow gardener and planted them and they took they are about 3 inches around now and they were a bout an inch around at fattest part going to move them to new spot at community garden for next year.
I have my celery growing in the water. It’s been there about a week and has new roots. When should I plant it in dirt and what conditions does it prefer. I also have my green onion ready to go!!
My husband decided to plant a white potato that had a few sprouts on it cuz he wanted to see if it could make more potatoes. The leaves started growing very quickly, and the potatoes have tons of new roots. We planted directly into a container and kept moist, then transplanted to the ground. Hopefully will get a good crop of potatoes!!
make sure you continue to cover the plant leaving about 1-2″ of leaves out for sun. This will promote more root growth and will develop more potatoes. Great idea for trash barrel or similar vertical container for small footprint and you don’t have to search for the potatoes in the fall. Just tip over and sift dirt off.
What AJ said. It’s important to realize with potatoes, the tubers don’t develop from the roots, they develop from underground stems called rhizomes. When you bury a piece of potato stem, it turns into a rhizome fully capable of developing a new potato along its length. And it does so without the plant having to go through the effort of growing new rhizomes and sending them downwards into the soil at the same time it’s trying to grow new stem tissue upwards.
I’ve done this with green onion. All that I’ve done was take a few green onions that I had that started to spoil and put some water in an old jar of water and just put the onions in the water. Few days later they started looking better and started growing. I’ve even cut them down once to cook with couple weeks ago and they have already grown back nice and tall like before I used them.
Someone said one can take a carrot top and replant it and get carrots from that. Is this true?
Carrots too. I imagine any root, tuber, or bulb will regrow just fine.
I also grow celery, carrot and garlic at home, I did not know about pinapple, thank you for great idea!
Check with your local ag office. Some states are very strict about potatoes and onions. Due to viruses that can contaminate the soil.
Hi . I live in Oman. I like orched. I tried so many times to cut orched brunch and regrow it. But I couldn’t able to do that. I tried rooting powder ,coconut water etc. No result. It never comes new roots What to do. Pease help.
BASIL ALSO, ONLY WHEN IT HAS FLOWERS,O OR YOU CAN SAY GOING TO SEED, CUT STALKS AND PLACE IN GLASS OF WATER IN SUNNY WINDOW. IT WILL GROW ROOTS..
Not so sure about Potatoes. They spray sprout inhibitors on them for a longer shelf life. Some of the early red varieties don’t sprout so easily, so maybe those aren’t sprayed.
Don’t forget that some things like bell peppers and tomatoes provide you with seeds that you can plant to start your new garden with.
I like the fact that you mentioned the PINEAPPLE.
I grow them myself.
BTW – it is true that you can regrow the plant from its crown, but it is also possible to propagate the plant using its suckers and slips that grow over time. That way, after those first 2-3 years you have several mature plants.
Another option is to germinate the pineapple seeds. You can get dozens of plants this way.
I am really enjoying my pineapple projects and wrote a more thorough article on the subject. I share my experience with growing pineapples, tips, pictures and more information.
Here is the link: https://www.webquestions.co/questions/how-to-grow-a-pineapple
Thanks!
Ben
pls.i sent know why my tomatoes get rotten at the bottom