5 Veggies You Can Grow From Kitchen Scraps
First, let me start off with saying there are definitely waaaay more than just 5 veggies you can grow from kitchen scraps, these are just the first ones I tried.
With the Corona Virus causing our vacation rental business to come to a screeching halt, we started putting our attention to other interests.
The latest project we’ve taken on is starting a garden, most likely a container garden.
During my perusing on Pinterest, I found a pin on regrowing vegetables from the kitchen scraps.
I just started this project but already have quite a few types of veggies that can be regrown from kitchen scraps.
Like I said, there’s probably many more vegetables you can do this with, but this is a list of the ones I started with.
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5 Vegetables You Can Grow From Kitchen Scraps
#1 – Lettuce
This seems to work with all kinds of lettuce, so far I’ve got butter, red leaf and romaine lettuce regrowing from kitchen scraps.
Out of the 3 the romaine seems to have a head start. To be fair, I was apparently more generous with the amount of base I left on the root – I’m guessing that would make a difference.
How To Start
When cutting the base of your lettuce head off, cut it about 1 1/2 – 2″ from the bottom. Then take the base and put it in a container with a bit of water on the bottom.
Make sure to change out the water every couple of days and in a few days you’ll start seeing new growth emerging from the center of the base.
Once you a good amount of growth, your new lettuce plant will probably be happier in soil. I’ve read that it would do fine in water, as long as you change out the water every couple of days.
Personally, when I planted the lettuce in the ground I noticed it started growing better. Maybe its just my imagination, but I’m placing my plants in the soil once they start showing signs of new growth.
Update: I learned recently that lettuce will shoot up right away when the temperature is above 70 degrees. Since we’re in Florida, those temps make it difficult for us to grow lettuce indoors. We keep the temperature around 75 degrees and the romaine lettuce I was testing with, shot straight up.
I’m trying again, this time with butter lettuce. As soon as the lettuce started growing new leaves I put it in dirt. Lets see if that improves things.
I’ll update this post with its progress.
#2 – Basil
We had a long and leggy basil plant that wasn’t producing many leaves anymore. So I figured I’d try to use a cutting to start a new plant.
So far, the basil I’m trying this with hasn’t made any new roots but I’m pretty confident that it will start rooting shortly.
The cutting looks like it’s doing well in the water, and from what I’ve read, basil is a piece of cake to grow from cuttings.
How To Start
You’ll want to give the cutting enough stem so that it can sit in water without the leaves touching the water. If the leaves sit in the water they’ll start rotting and the water will get cloudy and your cutting will probably die off.
So give the cutting a couple of inches of stem.
Take your cutting and place it in a container with enough water for about an inch of the stem to sit in the water.
Place it in a bright area without direct sunlight and wait. 🙂
#3 – Onions
The onions seem to grow pretty easily, it’s been a week and they look like they’re ready to be put into dirt.
Not sure if an actual whole onion will grow from this experiment but the green stems that grow from it can be used in cooking. The entire plant had an onion flavor.
#4 – Scallions
The scallions are the rock stars of my kitchen scrap garden! They have been in water for maybe about 5 days and have several inches of new growth already on them.
How To Start
Similar to the lettuce cuttings, when you cut the base of the scallions off cut it a bit higher than usual. About a couple of inches of the plant from the base.
Put them in a container with water on the bottom and you are all set.
Since they usually already have some roots, these guys didn’t waste any time growing.
#5 – Garlic
Ok, so this isn’t exactly using kitchen scraps, since you’re taking the entire unused clove and sticking it into the ground.
Maybe it’s more like a garden tithing. 🙂
I took a few small cloves of garlic and planted them in the dirt next to the tomato slice. They were in the dirt about 3 days and I’m starting to see some green on the tops of a few of the cloves.
I’m guessing they could have also had the base of the garlic sitting in a little puddle of water to get it to start growing but I tried sticking it directly in the ground and that seemed to work like a charm.
Caring For Your Kitchen Scrap Garden
It’s pretty straight-forward to care for it. Place them in an area that is bright but doesn’t have direct sun. For the scraps that are in water make sure to swap out the water every day or other day and for the scraps in dirt make sure their dirt stays moist – without over watering.
Before you know it you’ll start seeing new growth and your kitchen scrap garden will by off to the races! 🙂
Once the kitchen plants turn more into plants (either they grow roots are start growing new leaves) I’ll transplant them into grow bags.
Tip: When cutting the vegetable it seems to help to leave a bit of “meat” along with it. The lettuce and onions that I cut short didn’t seem to grow as fast or well compared to the ones where I left some more “meat”.
That’s My Kitchen Scrap Garden List
There are probably dozens of other veggies you can try this with, these are just the ones I’ve started with. I’m sure I’ll be adding other scraps to the list as I come across new ones.
Once the veggies grow a bit I’ll be transferring them to grow bags.
What did you think? I know I personally will never look at kitchen scraps the same way again. 🙂
Have you ever tried recycling your kitchen scraps? If so what veggies did you try? Did it work for you?
Lemme know in the comments below.
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