Don't toss those old potatoes or celery scraps. Put them to work and grow a kitchen garden from leftover bits and pieces.
Lettuce, cabbage and bok choy
Instead of discarding the base of these leafy plants, put them in a bowl of
shallow water for the leaves to regrow. Place the bowl in a location with
ample sunlight and occasionally mist the leaves with water. After a few days,
roots and new leaves will appear and you can transplant your leafy veggie into
soil.
Bean sprouts
Have some extra mung beans or wheat berries? Simply soak
a few tablespoons of them in a jar or container overnight. The
next day, drain the water and rinse the beans and then put them
back in the container and cover it with a towel. Rinse the beans
the next day and recover. Beans will likely sprout in just a day or two,
but keep rinsing and recovering the beans until sprouts have reached
the desired size.
Avocado
Wash the seed and use a few toothpicks to suspend it (broad end
down) over a container of water. The water should cover about an
inch of the seed. Place the container in a warm place out of direct
sunlight and add water as needed. Roots and stem will sprout in
two to six weeks, and when the stem reaches 6 inches in length,
cut it back to about 3 inches. When the roots are thick and the stem
has leaves, plant it in soil, leaving the seed half exposed. Keep the
water moist and make sure the plant gets plenty of sunlight. When
the stem is 12 inches high, cut it back to 6 inches to encourage
new shoots to grow.
Ginger
Take a section of the ginger root and plant it in soil where it will
get indirect sunlight. It grows well both indoors and outdoors.
When you need ginger for a recipe, simply pull it up, harvest some
of the root and then replant it.
Green onions
Stick the white root base into a cup of water and place it somewhere
it’ll get plenty of sunlight. Change out the water every few days,
and as the onions grow, simply trim off what you need and let the
plant regrow again.
Celery
Cut off the base of the celery and place it in a saucer or shallow
bowl of warm water in the sun. It may take about a week for leaves
to thicken and grow in the middle of the base, but once they start,
you can transfer the celery to soil.
Garlic
If you have extra garlic cloves lying around, plant them in soil in full
sun. When a tiny stalk sprouts from the bulb, cut it off and give the
garlic several weeks to fatten up.
Potatoes
When your potatoes start to grow eyes, cut them into 2-inch pieces
that contain eyes. Let them sit out overnight so the exposed sections
can dry out, and then plant them in soil about 4 inches deep, eyes facing up.
Sweet potatoes
Cut the potato in half, poke toothpicks midway into the halves and res
t them in a container of shallow water, cut portion facing down. Within
a few days, roots will begin to grow from the bottom while stems will
appear at the top. Once the sprouts have reached 4 to 5 inches in
length, twist them off and set them in a shallow bowl of water. Slips will
begin growing from the roots in just a couple of days, and once the roots
have reached an inch long, plant them in soil.
Pineapple
Twist the top off the fruit and peel back the bottom leaves of the base.
Once several layers of the base are exposed, cut off the tip to get ride
of the excess fruit. Poke a few toothpicks into the pineapple top and use
them to suspend the fruit in a container of water. Keep the container in
a sunny area, and change the water out every few days, keeping it
filled to just above the peeled base of the top. Roots will appear in
about a week, and once they’re fully formed, transfer the plant to soil.
Keep the plant inside unless you live in a warm climate.
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