When you’re cooking with fresh vegetables, the ends are oftentimes discarded. If you’re waste conscious those ends might end up in a broth. Otherwise they go straight to the compost. But there are many different vegetables that you can regrow if you just put them in some water.

Using your scraps to regrow vegetables is a great way to avoid extra plastic, start a garden, and save a little money. Plus, we’re in quarantine and looking for new ways to entertain ourselves, right?

Easy Vegetables:

There are a few easy vegetables that can regrow quickly with just water. Start off with these for some quick wins!

Green Onions

Green onions are the easiest vegetable to regrow. You simply put the ends in water, change the water every few days, and watch it grow! I’ve done this a few times and I end up growing more than I can used! In the photo above, that tiny bit of grow was after just one day!

Romaine Lettuce

Same as the green onions you put the end in water and change the water every few days. The Romaine lettuce on the right has been growing for a week and the one on the left has been growing for almost three weeks.

Medium Vegetables:

With these vegetables, after starting off in water, you’ll need to transfer them to soil. Or they start off in soil and stay there. These are also medium difficulty because they take a little longer to grow.

Celery

Start by placing the butt of the celery bunch in a dish of water in a sunny area. After the roots have grown, transfer to soil. See here for more information.

Bok Choy

Bok choy is similar to celery. Put the butt end in a dish of water until roots form and then transfer to soil. See here for more information.

Onions

To regrow onions simply put the bottom or root end in water. Once new roots begin to develop, plant the onion bottom in soil. It takes about 3 months to regrow an onion. See here for more information.

Cabbage

Similar to lettuce, take the base of the cabbage and put it in water.  Once the roots and leaves start to grow transfer the root to soil.  Leave plenty of room between cabbages as they can grow to be large but do not let it grow too large as it starts to lose its flavor when it grows too large. See here for more information.

Tomatoes

Technically, this isn’t a discard piece, but if you put a slice of tomato into soil and water it, you’ll get a nice tomato plant going! I saw this video years ago and have not bought a tomato plant or seeds since!

Difficult Vegetables:

If you’re up for a challenge and have lots of patience, try regrowing these vegetables!

Ginger

Similar to the rest of the vegetables so far, if you soak a ginger root in water, it will start to form sprouts and a root. After you see a tall sprout, you can either plant the whole piece of ginger in soil, or twist off the sprout and roots and plant that. Water and place in an area with indirect sunlight.  Ginger makes a beautiful houseplant or when ready, just pull the sprout to harvest the ginger. 

Sweet Potato

To regrow sweet potatoes, cut a piece of sweet potato and put toothpicks in opposite sides so that the potato chunk can hoover in water but not be fully submerged but so the bottom of the potato is not touching the bottom of the container. After a few weeks you’ll see leaves start to sprout. These are called “slips”. Carefully twist off a slip and place that in water to develop roots. After a few days roots should form on the slip. After roots have formed it is ready to plant in soil. After four months, your sweet potatoes should be ready to harvest. For more information see here.

Avocado

This was a project of patience. I was bored years ago and wanted to see if I could grow an avocado tree from a pit. Even knowing that it would take years before I would see an avocado, if lucky, I still attempted it a few times. Some avocado trees fruit within 3 – 4 years…others take 15 years!

To start, you poke some toothpicks into the pit and submerge it partially in water. After a while you will see a root form. Sometimes this can take 2 – 4 weeks, other times it can take 8 weeks. This one here took it’s dear sweet time and didn’t pop out until 8 weeks.

After that it’s the same waiting game. Keep changing the water every few days and eventually you get a sprout on top. Once that sprout reaches 15 centimetres you can plant it. See here for more information.

Bonus:

Pineapple

Yes, this is a fruit but I thought this was so neat, it had to be included.  Regrowing a full fruit is highly unlikely, but you can grow a beautiful pineapple house plant.  Simply cut the top of the pineapple, remove all the remaining fruit, plant it in soil with the top sticking out, water and place in a sunny area.  See here for more information.

Next time you think about throwing away vegetable (or fruit) scraps, consider planting and regrowing them instead.  Do you have vegetables I’ve missed or ones you’ve tried to regrow?  Tell me in the comments!

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