Many vegetables and herbs from your garden, the market or your local grocery store will regrow easily in water or in soil. You can regrow fresh greens like herbs on a window sill indoors, or regrow your vegetable scraps to use fresh in sandwiches and salads. You can also get a jump start on your herb and vegetable garden by regrowing kitchen scraps.
Here are simple how-to instructions for regrowing vegetable scraps to use in sandwiches and salads from urban homesteader and Simple Bites Kitchen author, Aimée Wimbush-Bourque:
1. Gather your vegetable scraps like green onion, celery, fennel, romaine lettuce, garlic and bok choy.
2. Place them in a tray or collection of small kitchen bowls – any vessel that will hold a bit of water and isn’t tippy.
3. Add 1 inch of cool tap water around the vegetables, taking care not to submerge them. Taller vegetables like green onions can go into a mason jar.
4. Set them in a bright spot and change the water daily. Regrowth will start after about 4-5 days.
Read a few more things that Aimée has learned along the way in this post on her website.
Here are 15 common vegetables you can regrow from scraps:
- Carrots, Turnips, Parsnips, and Beets
- Onions, Leeks, Shallots, and Garlic
- Lettuce
- Fennel (bulb) and Celery (bulb)
- Cabbage
- Bok Choy
- Potato and Sweet Potato
And these herbs will sprout roots when you leave them in a small glass of water on your window sill:
- Parsley
- Basil
- Mint
- Thyme
- Rosemary