Vegetables You Can Grow From Scraps

When you have scraps from produce, do you often throw them in the trash? If so, you’re doing yourself a major disservice. Believe it or not, you can regrow all kinds of vegetables with scraps that you would’ve tossed in the trash. If you’re all about planting different crops and saving money in the process, you need to know which vegetables to grow from scraps and how to get started.

The Best Veggies to Grow Using Scraps to Get Started

Whether you like to grow and eat potatoes, lettuce, or other vegetables, you’ll be surprised to learn that many of them can grow from scraps that you’re planting in soil throughout the garden.

Onions

You can easily grow several types of onions from leftover scraps in the kitchen. Save the bottom 3rd of the scallion (green onions) or the onion bulb. Fill your container with enough water to cover at least 1/2 the stalk of the scallion and place in a sunny area of your home. It will take several days to see the new growth and be sure to change the water frequently. You can plant in your garden once roots appear.

With onion bulbs you want to save the bas of the onion where the roots were. You can plant this directly in a container of soil, root side down. Keep your soil moist but not wet. You’ll see green shoots soon and can trim those for use in many dishes.

How to Grow Scallions in Your Backyard

Vegetables You Can Grow From Scraps sweet potato slip

Potatoes

If you’ve ever had a potato that was getting a bit old, you may have noticed lumps sprouting out from it. These lumps are commonly referred to as the eyes of the potato. You can remove those eyes and plant them in the soil to get new potatoes to grow.

Besides using these pieces of the potato, you can also use the peels to grow new potatoes. So, if you’re planning on peeling potatoes to make potato salad or mashed potatoes, save the peels instead of throwing them out. You can put them to good use in your garden!

Cabbage

After you’ve planted some cabbage, you can keep it growing by taking specific steps when harvesting each of your cabbage heads. Once you’ve cut a cabbage head from the root in the ground, you can leave the root there, allowing more cabbage heads to sprout.

It’s also possible to get the cabbage to grow by using scraps, such as old cabbage leaves that you don’t want to waste. If you’re not eating them, use them in your garden to regrow more cabbage than before.

How to Plant and Grow Cabbage

Lettuce

Growing lettuce is a good idea because you can make salads with it. If you’re a salad lover who enjoys experimenting with different ingredients and dressings, you can save money on your lettuce heads by growing them all over again using lettuce leaves. That’s right!

You can take the leaf of your lettuce, place it in a bowl or jar with a small amount of water, and then put it out in a sunny spot for several days. You’ll start to notice roots appearing from these leaves. Once you spot those roots, carefully place the plant in the ground with the surrounding soil to encourage growth. You can do this with several types of lettuce leaves.

How to Grow Lettuce in Your Backyard

Beets

Do you like beets? If you eat them often, preserve the scraps. You can use the top of each beet to help you grow more of them. You’ll need to add them to a container with water to get the new beets to grow. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see anything right away.

It typically takes a week or two to notice new growth. When those roots start to appear, you can plant the beets and adequately maintain them until you’re ready to harvest them. Once you can harvest them, you can make all kinds of tasty foods with them, including beet macaroni salad and beet chips.

Growing Beets in Your Backyard

Celery

Having celery growing in the garden is ideal because you can use it to prepare different meals. It’s a fantastic ingredient to add to various soups, salads, and casseroles consisting of meat and other vegetables. Because it’s good to have, you’ll be glad to know that you can use your celery scraps to grow more celery in the garden.

You’ll use the bottoms of your celery to help you get started. You’ll need to place the bottoms in a container filled with a bit of warm water. Leave the container out in the open, where it’ll get plenty of warm air and sunlight. You’ll start to see progress within a week. Before you know it, you’ll have plenty of celery available to harvest and eat.

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Carrots

Who doesn’t love carrots? They have a naturally slightly sweet taste and are great to eat raw or cooked. You can dip them in ranch, hummus, and other sauces, steam them, or even bake them and serve them with some of your favorite meats and side dishes. Because they’re such a staple to have in the kitchen, it’s good to know that you can use your carrot scraps to grow new carrots in your garden.

When you cut the tops of your carrots before peeling them and chopping them into pieces, set those tops off to the side because you can use them in the garden. You’ll need to grab a large container and fill it with water, adding the carrot tops to the container to encourage growth.

You’ll start to see green pieces growing within no time. If you continue to allow the roots to grow, you can move them to the soil in your garden and eventually grow large carrots that are easy to harvest.

Other Types of Crops You Can Grow From Scraps

While it’s possible to grow many vegetables from scraps, there are other crops that you can also grow from scraps. You may want to have these herbs growing in the garden because you can use them to add more flavor to both food and beverages that you’ll prepare.

Some of the best herbs to regrow from scraps include mint, basil, and cilantro. If you’re going to regrow them, put the stem in a cup of water. Keep the leaves above the water. Give it a few days, and you’ll start to see roots forming. You may then transplant the herbs to your garden and provide them with the care they’ll need to grow.

You can also grow fruits from scraps – like pineapple and tomatoes.

The next time you’re getting ready to toss your scraps in the trash, think twice about doing so. Instead of getting rid of the leftovers, you can reuse them to grow more vegetables. It’s a simple process that will save you money in the long run. If you’d like to continue growing different crops, including carrots, cabbage, lettuce, mint leaves, and more, use these simple scrapping techniques to make that happen.