Talk about having your cake and eating it, too! I am currently growing chives this way in a glass. I've cut them once, and they're still going strong. I have a pineapple that my husband planted in the garden, and I'm really hoping it makes it through the winter. I'm going to keep my eyes open for more things to propagate like this.
Growing new food from old scraps
- Thread starter ChanellG
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Chanell, this is a great post! It's a great way for people to utilize limited space, and re-generate growth. I am actually going to do this right now. I have some scallions in which have pretty well seen their day, I will let you know how I make out.
It's a great way to keep your garden happening. I always save the top of pineapples and stick them in the ground. I have regrown ginger from the shoots of old leftover pieces. I have also grown sweet potatoes from the fresh offshoots. Papaws and tomatoes are sprouting all around my house simply because I have a habit of throwing vegetable left-overs out of the window. There is always a hungry wallaby mouth just waiting underneath it.
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My ginger grew for a while in a small container on the windowsill and then it died. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I may try again down the road as everyone in the house likes ginger, it just takes such a long time to get it to harvesting stage. My biggest success last year was with composting, lol!
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I bought bags of onions and potatoes at the supermarket recently and a number of the onions sprouted, as well as the last two uncooked potatoes. It really annoyed me because the temperature was not to warm or humid and I hadn't had the produce much more than a week when the onions started sprouting one by one. This just let me know how long supermarket produce sits around...
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I got some at the Farmer's Market the other day and immediately put them in a cup with a few tablespoons of water. I cut the tops completely off one and immediately the next day it started growing back. I showed my "Mr" and he was amazed that it could do that overnight.
I plan to cut the tops off all the others and put them in a bag in the fridge since they start to turn yellow if you don't trim them regularly. I'll get two more "harvests" before I have to throw the bottoms into the compost bin.
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You can regrow some stuff, use some scraps for soup stock, and compost the rest. Root vegetables like carrots and beets won't regrow, but you can get more greens from them and the carrot tops make great food for some butterfly larvae, which saves your parsley and such so you can eat it yourself!
Silly, @zigs.
Just browsing through some old posts here and found yours Chanell...this bottom link has a thing on sprouting lentils. I had a parrot a few years ago and was told lentil sprouts were very easy and very healthy for parrots. The method I used was different, but simpler than this describes but omg I had great results! My parrot devoured them, it was so funny seeing him eat them, like spaghetti hanging out his beak haha. And they smelled so good and nutty, I had to try them myself. Delicious eating them just like that. Tastes a lot like fresh raw peanuts I found. After the sprouts grew just about 2 or 3 inches, I would rinse them good, drain, leaving them in the big plastic glass I sprouted them in (Chanell knows those Mardi gras cups haha), and keep them in the fridge. They were great cold. I'm gonna sprout some this weekend. They last in the fridge about 3 days but mine were always eaten way before then. I like big salads in the summers and I'll put some sprouts in with that.
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I have carrot tops regrowing in the kitchen right now. I also have a couple of pineapple tops in water, though I have been wondering if maybe I should have just put them directly in soil without trying to sprout them first. The bottom of the pineapple top is so fibrous it's hard to tell if it is forming roots or not.
I would think if you've had the pineapple tops a good while and they're still green, they must have a few roots even if you can't distinguish them from the fiber stuff. Are you wanting to put them in pots?
They're related to bromilliads. I had bought one and after it bloomed it made a few sprouts out from the base (they're called pups), which I eventually potted up separately. One is doing especially good and it looks like it's trying to make a flower, or whatever it's called. This will be a first for me.
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Pineapple plants make pups like strawberries? My dad has successfully grown them and my mom has some she started last year (at least I think she does, if the frost didn't get them). I will definitely be putting them in pots.
I'm not sure about the pineapple...I was talking about my bromilliad, which is in the same family as pineapple I think. The little pups come up at the base of the "mother" plant, all around. When they get to be a decent size, you have to cut them away from the mother plant...they normally come off with a little root of their own. I think strawberry plants make little offshoots, huh, like a spider plant? That's different than how the pups grow on a bromilliad.