Say goodbye to food waste and hello to endless veggies 🍅! Learn simple yet effective methods to regrow your favorite vegetables 🌶️ right at the comfort of your own home! Not only will your wallet love it, Mother Earth will too!🌎
Have you ever thought of learning how to regrow vegetables? Basically, there are certain veggies that you can regrow from their own scraps. Doing this is a great way to save money on food and to reduce kitchen waste in your home.
If you’ve got your own garden or you’ve been trying to learn how to grow a garden for free, you can use this method to continue gaining from your harvest each year. In fact, if you grow an indoor garden, you can usually keep things growing all year long by simply utilizing your food scraps for something more than compost.
What Veggies Can You Regrow?
There are quite a few ways to regrow vegetables and kitchen scraps. This post only focuses on fourteen specific ones, but there are far more than we could mention here. In addition to the ones mentioned below, you can also regrow beets, bok choy, leeks, turnips, parsnips and other root vegetables.
Can You Regrow Vegetables from the Grocery Store?
Unfortunately no. Most produce found in your local grocery store is genetically modified and are usually grown from seeds that are produced by a certain company that starts with an M. Because of this, the final product typically does not regrow the way you would want it to.
If you did manage to regrow vegetables grown from store bought scraps, they won’t continue the regrowth cycle more than one time.
However, when you use heirloom seeds and grow things yourself, you can usually regrow endlessly.
Can You Save Seeds from Grocery Store Vegetables?
Saving seeds from grocery store vegetables is the same as trying to regrow vegetables from them. 90% of the time, it doesn’t work and what does work does not have a great quality or yield to it.
In order to save seeds from any homegrown produce, you will need to use heirloom seeds. Heirloom seeds are seeds that come from unadulterated fruits and vegetables. Many of them have been grown and seeds saved for hundreds of years. Some such as the ancient grains like Eikhorn, have been treated this way for thousands of years.
Regrow Potatoes from Scraps
The price of potatoes fluctuates pretty hard during the year and sometimes they can be pretty expensive. New potatoes (or baby reds) especially. Luckily, potatoes are super easy to grow from scraps.
You’ll need to find a potato that has several “eyes” on it. Cut it into two-inch chunks making sure that here are 2-3 eyes on it. Let them dry overnight and then using a clean and new trash can or a 5 gallon food safe bucket, plant them in an organic potting soil with organic compost about 4 inches deep with the eyes facing up.
Potatoes need a lot of water to keep them healthy so be sure you water them often. Keep them healthy and you’ll have tasty new potatoes in just a few weeks.
Regrow Celery from Scraps
Celery is one of the easiest vegetables to regrow from scraps. In fact, it’s so easy to do that my daughter used to love doing it herself when she was younger.
Cut the base off of the celery that you have in the fridge and place it into a bowl of water in a sunny area such as a windowsill that does not receive direct sun. Wait for it to sprout new leaves and plant in soil in a well draining flower pot.
Celery grows really fast so if you do the process correctly, you’ll have a full stalk pretty quickly.
Regrow Lettuce From Scraps
Lettuce, like celery, grows from scraps really easily. Simply place the root in a bowl of water then place the bowl in indirect sunlight. Keep your scrap watered and roots should take form around 3-4 days later. Once you’ve got roots, it is ready to be planted in potting soil.
This works well for most greens that you use for salads including kale and most forms of lettuce like romaine lettuce and iceberg lettuce.
Regrow Pineapple from Scraps
I adore fresh pineapple, but unless I can catch it on sale, I rarely buy it because of the cost. However, learning to regrow pineapple from scraps was super easy and I can’t wait to harvest.
To regrow pineapple, cut the top off a pineapple and insert some toothpicks to suspend it above a container filled with water. Keep the container and your scrap in direct sunlight.
If the weather is warm, sitting it outside would help with growth since they are tropical fruits. Just remember to bring it in at night when the temperatures dip and if you live in an area that gets cool or cold, keep your pineapple scraps growing indoors.
Change out the water about every other day and in about a week you will notice root growing. Transplant the scrap once you have a root growing.
Regrow Avocado from Scraps
Want to regrow avocado? Take the pit and use toothpicks to suspend it over a jar or glass filled with just enough water to cover the bottom of the seed. Keep it in a warm place but not in direct sunlight.
Let it grow until the stem gets to be about 6 inches. At about 6 inches, trim the stem back about halfway to 3 inches. Wait for leaves to appear then plant in potting soil once they do.
Regrow Sweet Potatoes from Scraps
You would think that the process to regrow sweet potato scraps and potato scraps would be grown the same, but surprisingly they’re not.
To regrow sweet potatoes from scraps, cut a sweet potato in half and like the avocado, suspend it in a jar with toothpicks and shallow water. Roots will appear in a few days. Wait until a sprout shows up, then twist it off once it reaches about 4 inches.
Place it water and once it has roots that are an inch long you can plant it in soil.
Regrow Ginger from Scraps
If ginger is on your list of must have herbal teas or spices, it is pretty simple to regrow. To do so, take a piece of your ginger root and plant it with the buds facing up. New shoots should appear in about a week or so.
Ginger can be regrown over and over so be sure that you keep a piece on hand so that you never run out.
Regrow Garlic from Scraps
I go through so much garlic which makes the fact that it’s so simple to regrow garlic near and dear to my heart. It’s incredibly easy to grow in pots or in raised garden beds if you’re looking to grow an indoor kitchen garden.
To regrow garlic, you’ll need a full clove. Place it root down in potting soil and keep it in a warm place with indirect sunlight. Once a green shoot appears, trim it back and a bulb will grow.
When you grow garlic from scraps, you do need to buy that first clove of seed garlic, but luckily for me (and you!) you can keep planting it like this making it well worth your while to do.
Regrow Onions from Scraps
Onion is another vegetable that most of us go through fairly quickly, but luckily, it’s also fairly easy to regrow.
To regrow onion, cut the root off the onion making sure to leave a half inch of onion on the root.. Cover with potting soil and like with garlic, keep in a warm place.
Regrow Green Onions from Scraps
Green onions can be regrown too. Cut them off at the root and put into a bowl or glass of water deep enough to cover them. Point the roots downward and wait until the roots grow out a bit to plant them. Be sure to keep them in fresh water or else the water may get greasy.
Regrow Herbs from Scraps
A lot of herbs and seasonings are easy to regrow as well. Basil, cilantro, fennel, cloves, and mint are just a few. The process is essentially the same for each herb. Take a cutting of a live stem from your plant and remove the lower leaves.
Place the cutting in a shallow container of water and leave it in a sunny place. After a few days, new roots will grow. At this point, plant it as you normally would and watch it grow.
Regrow Carrots from Scraps
Carrots can be regrown into greens that are great for salads, chickens, rabbits and more. Simply save your carrot top pieces and place them cut side down in a shallow bowl of water. After a few days, the leafy tops will regrow.
Cut the greens off and use them however you need.
Regrow Radish from Scraps
Radish is one of the best vegetables to regrow and since they’re a fantastic source of fiber, they’re a great addition to your crops.
Cut the radish about 1″ above the root and use 3 toothpicks – one on each side – to suspend the root cutting over a dish of water. Place the cutting in a sunny area and wait a few days. Once the roots have regrown to a decent size, plant it as you normally would.
Regrow Cabbage from Scraps
Finally, it is incredibly simple to regrow cabbage from scraps. The process is very similar to regrowing lettuce. Cut the base of the cabbage off and place in a shallow bowl with a little water. Within a few days, you should see new leaves begin to appear.
Unlike lettuce, once the new leaves appear, you’ll need to lightly mist regrowing cabbage leaves with water to keep them hydrated as they grow.
Once the leaves are fully mature, harvest and make homemade sauerkraut or eat as you normally would.
Regrowing food from scraps is not going to feed your family everyday, but it may give you enough of a harvest to cut your grocery bill just a bit. And in today’s economy, any savings is a good savings.