Sunday, March 11, 2012

Gardening with kitchen scraps.

I cannot remember exactly where I first saw this (as usual), perhaps on a pinterest board, but I thought it was a neat idea.  I know there are many things you can grow from food you buy at the grocery store - we've grown grape tomatoes from seeds we saved from store-bought tomatoes, but I would never have considered celery.  After all, what you eat has been chopped off with no thought as to propagation.  But since I'm always up for a little gardening adventure, as long as that adventure doesn't involve bugs, at any stage of development, I thought I'd give it a try.
On Tuesday, we whacked off the celery, leaving 2-3 inches at the bottom, and placed it in a bowl of warm water.  Some sites said to do this overnight and then plant it outside, and some said you could leave it in the water for a week.  After finding out more about growing celery, I decided to leave it in for a week because we were not yet staying consistantly above 40 degrees at night. 
The yellow in the middle are tiny, squished together leaves.
This is what it looked liked Sunday afternoon.
There is definately some growth there.  There's even a tiny stalk you can just see, starting to peek out on one side.  I don't yet see anything that remotely looks like it's trying to grow roots, but since the weather is suposed to go no lower than fifty this coming week, I think I'm going to plant it out and see what it does.  We may still have a night or two of colder weather in our future, but hey, it can't hurt to try.  I should at least be able to find out if it will work fairly well.

I've found other sites that suggest using whole seed spices, seeds saved from fruits or vegetables, and even store bought ginger root to add to your garden.  Just find out the particular growing habits of whatever it is you want to grow and give it a try.  I'll try to remember to do a follow up post to let you know how it turned out.

I've linked this post with the Homestead Barn Hop.  There are always lots of interesting links.
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6 comments:

  1. What a nice time saving idea. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. Your welcome.
      I think it will save a lot of time too, given what I've read about growing celery.

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  2. I just started one about a week ago and it has grown about 5 inches out of the center! I haven't put it in dirt yet, maybe I will this week. I also am doing the same thing with the root ends of a bunch of green onions and it one day they are growing new green tops! This is so much fun and a two-fer.....buy once and enjoy twice

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    1. I was surprised at how quickly it grew. I could actually see the little leaves starting to poke above the rest the day after I started it, but I tried to tell myself that was ridiculous, that the rest may have shrunk up a bit. I was wrong, and It continues it's rapid growth. I can't believe how much it's grown just since I took the second picture yesterday.

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  3. I am trying this at the present time, too. I am going to do my celery and also doing green onions, but I am going to use the potted method. Anxious to see how well it works.

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  4. I'll have to try the onions, and I considered the potting method if our weather hadn't warmed up. I wish you success.

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