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If you intend to grow your own vegetables in your backyard or on your patio, you can always start from seeds or use plants that have already been started by the local nursery. Looking at plants that regrow themselves is a fun idea!
Another option is to use food scraps that can actually grow another plant all on its own. Here are some plants that have this ability.
8 Plants That Regrow Themselves
The thrifty tightwad in me just simply adores that fact! I am the person who even uses the apple peels from my canning apple pie filling and homemade apple sauce to make apple peel jelly!
When it comes to saving money, nothing will do it better than growing your own food. Not only will it save you some dough each month, but it will also help you eat healthier. Here are several foods that you can buy once this year, and then grow at home all year round.
Romaine Lettuce
Having lettuce at home is always a good thing. While it isn’t exactly expensive to get at the store, you often want to have it fresh and need it without making an extra trip. You can have it on hand just about year-round when you grow it yourself.
Lettuce is full of nutrients and adding it to the plants that regrow themselves means growing it at home can make it last longer than if you buy it in a store. Romaine is one of the best greens that can grow on its own just from food scraps.
All you need is the stump of your romaine lettuce and about ½ inch of water. Leave it in a jar with the water, and it will start to grow. In roughly two weeks new spouts will start to form and in about four weeks they will be full-grown and ready for picking and eating. Once this happens, transfer it to soil and you will have romaine lettuce growing.
Celery
Another excellent vegetable that you can grow from scraps is celery. Like the romaine lettuce, you need the base of the celery bunch instead of an individual celery stalk.
Buy a celery bunch at the store and when you’re done using the celery, save the base of it. Place it in a bowl with warm water and put it in sunlight. Once the leaves begin to grow, you can transfer them to soil in a pot or in your backyard.
Plants that regrow themselves: Potatoes
Multiple types of potatoes can grow on its own from the food scraps, including white potatoes and sweet potatoes. If you are working on eating healthier or even low-carb, you can still enjoy sweet potatoes.
What you want to do is to take a sweet potato and cut it in half. Take one-half of it to suspend it above a glass by using any type of skewer or stick that will hold it. A few days later it will grow roots, which is when you can remove them and plant them in the ground. You want about an inch of roots for this to work.
Carrots
If you like to eat carrots a lot, this is one of the plants that regrow themselves you should try. You can regrow them with the tops of your carrots. Cut off the tops of a bunch of carrots and put them in a bowl or jar of water.
Set it in the sunlight either on your patio or right in your kitchen on the window sill. In a few days, you will start to notice more carrot leaves which can be used in different dishes.
Lemons
Lemons are packed with vitamin C, antioxidants, and nutrients that help decrease heart disease risk, reduce inflammation, fight bad breath, alleviate nausea, curb your appetite, and smell great for cleaning. Growing them inside is also super simple!
Simply take the seeds from several lemons as you use the fruit, and then store them in a cool, dry place for a week to allow them to dry out. Rinse them off, and then bury the seeds, two in a hole, about two inches apart in a plastic pot. Make sure the pot has holes punched in the bottom for drainage and place a drainage dish under it.
Be sure to use potting soil made for citrus trees and place the pot in a window where it guaranteed at least eight hours of direct sunlight a day. Keep temperatures inside at 55-85 degrees for optimal growth, and water every other day to keep the topsoil moist, but not saturated.
When the plant begins to grow, spritz the leaves once a week with a water bottle. It generally takes around six months for lemons to ripen, sometimes up to nine months.
Garlic
Garlic is good for a number of things, and many people use it for multiple dishes. While it isn’t expensive, you can still save money by growing it on your own. When the garlic starts to sprout, put the cloves in a glass with a little water. The garlic will sprout and those sprouts have a mild taste, making them perfect as a garnish or in salads.
Scallions
While this may not seem like a food you can grow at home, of all the foods to buy and then grow at home, this had to join our list. It is and it has many benefits. Scallions are related to garlic, and they have cancer fighting properties, as well as help to reduce inflammation and risk of heart disease.
Buy a bunch of scallions in the store, bunch the bulbs together and keep them in place with a rubber band, place the entire thing (even greens) in a vase with an inch of water on the bottom. Add fresh water daily, but never go higher than an inch. You don’t want to drown them!
New shoots will appear in about a week, which is when you should plant the scallions in a shallow pot, placing them in full sun and watering daily. Simply clip the tops when you need scallions. Use the white parts sparingly and only when the shoots are a full six inches tall, at minimum.
Plants that regrow themselves: Ginger
Ginger has many benefits, like calming nausea, reducing inflammation, easing sore muscles, ridding you of headaches, and can even fight certain types of cancers. It is definitely a tasty (although spicy) superfood. To grow it at home, buy a chunk of ginger and cover it with soil in a planting pot, making sure the healthier-looking end is facing up.
Place it in indirect sunlight and wait! Growth usually happens in four weeks. To use, take the entire plant (which is really a root) out of the pot, clip what you need, then re-plant. Water the plant three times a week.
Some other less popular options include cilantro, bok choy, and lemon grass.
If you haven't tried growing new food from scraps before, think about it - it is a fun project with kids!