Vegetables that you can regrow from scraps

Which Vegetables Can You Regrow From Scraps?

Here are some of the common vegetables that you can regrow from scraps:

• Potatoes
• Sweet Potatoes
• Onions, Garlic, Leeks and Shallots
• Celery
• Carrots

Chunky sections of potato peel or pieces of potato that include an ‘eye’ on them (those small indentations from which the shoots grow) can be replanted to grow new potato plants.

Sweet potatoes can also be regrown with their scraps. If a sweet potato is a little past its best for eating, you can cut it in half and suspend each half using toothpicks or twigs above a shallow container of water.Once the sprouts grow to around 10cm/ 4 inches in height, nip them off and place them with their bases in a container of water. Roots will grow from the base of these shoots. As soon as the roots are growing, you can take these slips and plant them up in the soil.

You can re-grow all of them ( Onions, Garlic, Leeks and Shallots) from the rooting base of the bulb or stem. Simply take a small section of the base of a bulb or stem, with the roots attached, and place it in a shallow dish of water.green material will begin to grow from this base section. These re-sprouting sections can then simply be harvested again. Or you can plant them out in your garden. Onions and garlic will form new single bulbs, while shallots will divide and form clumps, expanding your harvest each year.

Celery is one of the easiest plants to regrow from scraps. You simply have to cut off the bottom of the celery and place it in a shallow container with a little warm water in the bottom. The bowl should be kept in a sunny and relatively warm place.After a week or so, leaves will begin to grow, and you can wait and harvest these as required, or replant the celery in your garden and allow it to grow into another full-sized plant. 

Retaining the tops of carrots (where the leaves and stems join onto the root) will allow you to regrow them. Place the tops in a container of water and new, green tops should begin to grow in a matter of days. You can simply harvest and use these greens as they grow, or you can allow the roots to continue growing until the plants are ready to be transplanted back into the ground.

Starting your windowsill garden is as easy as placing the ends or tops of a few kitchen produce scraps in about an inch of fresh water and setting them in partial sunshine. Your only maintenance is to change the water daily – now you see why this is such a good project for kids.