The TRUTH About Regrowing Veggies From Kitchen Scraps
We've all seen them - and I've even ROASTED some. The "viral hacks" about regrowing common plants from kitchen scraps. In today's video, our resident horticulturist Chris actually regrew ALL of the common scraps to see what ACTUALLY happens and what that means for your garden.
00:00 - Intro
01:00 - Plant Morphology
01:24 - Seed To Tree
02:15 - Non Viable Seeds
03:34 - Vegetative parts
04:05 - Trying Scrap Experiment
09:19 - Stems
10:14 - Leaves
12:29 - Biennials & Flowering
13:01 - Plant Lifecycle
13:55 - Outro
IN THIS VIDEO
More Veggies To Regrow:
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Hopefully this clears up some of the regrowing hacks you see out there on the internet! Stay tuned for more experiments ;)
Omg what about all of these videos showing people growing things like big watermelons in perfect rows on trellises in bags-? Does anyone know what I mean? Its usually things with large root systems in rather small grow bags. I think they're rigging it all up and its all fake. I know you could prune the baby melons to get them lined up more symmetrically but it screams fake to me.
Absolutely did!! Thank so much for your time and efforts I really appreciate this! We really need support like you are providing us with to be able to become self-reliant as much as possible. Even if some of us are unable or simply are not comfortable with setting up a garden.
I really like Chris's presentations. 👍
I have to say that this hack did work for me. I occasionally need green onions but typically not, and I’m always in the position of having to run to the store to buy a bunch, from which I will just use two or three onions. So, growing some and keeping them around means I have green onions when I need them but they don’t go bad. Of course I’m not stupid enough to try growing an apple tree from a pip.
💛'd this
The carrot won't give you a new carrot but it will give you greens, which will in time give you flowers wich will give you seeds which will give you carrots next year....
That's what I came here to say!
My carrots all came that way.
Ah, the ol' long carrot con...
What about parsnips🤔
@@LolaBreakHEARTS Try it. See what happens.
30 years ago I was talking to my neighbor who was a life long vegetable gardeners who had amazing produce. The original source for his prize cherry tomato plants was a single delicious tomato he'd eaten in a cafe decades earlier. He saved the seeds in his hankerchief and grew them at home and kept saving seeds every year. I also think that if you are someone like me who spends $3-4 a week on green onions week, it's worth it to have a window box that is producing fresh onions out of waste.
I agree 100% about the green onion. It works well for me.
You have to be cautious doing this with tomatoes, as they are often not 'true to seed'. On some varieties the seeds will certainly produce vastly different fruit than the parents. That being said, other strains are remarkably stable. The one I maintain year to year I got from my 85 y/o neighbors, who has been keeping it going for years.
@@horrido666 The "Not true to seed" is most often from it being a Hybrid variety. "Heirloom" or "Heritage" seeds are the way to go.
Same. I planted grocery store green onions in a planter and keep it in my windowsill year round. I just cut what I want and it grows more in about a week.
I forgot to mention: I WAS buying Green Onyo regularly, and never using even a half. And then WalMart switched over to the sturdier bags, and I use delivery and never go back to the store, and two of the grocery bags takes one 40-lb bag of dirt... They wintered outside just fine, but, I live in Seattle.
This is interesting material. A lot of people don't understand how to propagate plants. A side note, my wife's grandpa once threw a peach seed out his back door. I grew into a natural dwarf and produced peaches 🍑 in about three years.
you grew into a natural dwarf and produced peaches? facinating!
I too want to be a dwarf producing peaches
@@inugami-d5355 Some dwarfs have the best 🍑
These comments are gold 😂
You must be peachy 😂😂😂😂
Despite these hacks being oversimplified, I developed a love for growing ginger & galangal in big pots. I didn't imagine myself having a green thumb. Both plants are slow growing in reality yet my patience was rewarded with baby ginger and ginger flowers. Baby ginger is tender & creamy. I have never seen a ginger flower in my life and I was very pleased. These hacks were an opportunity for me to learn about properly growing plants.
I have failed at every attempt to grow ginger and this is such an expensive endeavor so do you have any tips that can help?
Im crossing my fingers on the ginger I planted earlier this month, haha. Great work! 👍
@@chinabrown2933What are you doing with the ginger? What is the result? I've grown ginger for years
Something must be wrong with my ginger if it is considered to be a slow growing plant. Mine shot up to 130 cm within 2 months
Wash your ginger scraps, then soak them for 24hr. Then wash them again. That’s how I grew my ginger plant.
Actually I have an avacado tree grown from my organic seed. It took 6 years to produce but Ive been getting beautiful avacados for 2 years now 👏😁
Is the avocado in a pot?
@@sparkyheberling6115 You can keep it in a pot in its early development but when its not a sapling but a tree it needs to go outside. Avocado trees can become massive after a few decades keeping it in a pot restricts its potential growth.
I just started mine iv got some tiny leafs sprouts
Did you cut off the top of the shoot to encourage axial growth?
Does it taste good?
I appreciate this video being less dismissive of regrowing thing. I personally love growing weird plants from scraps or seeds from the store. It's like an experiment lol. I grew a clementine tree from a seed (that it wasn't supposed to have) and it's been 7 years I'm hoping it flowers soon. Did the same with an apple tree, lemon tree and star fruit. Oh and dragon fruit
Wow! You must be a very good gardener! I would definitely kill them 😂
@@Angeegabs haha well I definitely wing it for the most part. The key is just to keep looking at whatever you're growing and watering it when it looks like it needs it. Also I have definitely killed many things lol
this is the reason you should grow kitchen scraps. just for the fun and the novelty of it. good for you and your super green thumb 🥬👍
We had luck in Florida with avocado, mango and ackee trees. The mango is huge now and even after being hit by lightning it continues to produce, as does the ackee (besides, robins return to nest in it every year :)). The two avocado trees died after lightning hits, but birds love to perch on them to sing and lookout, so the dead trunks remain.
Crab apples lol
There was a sale on last year for live lettuce and I bought 10 live plants for $10. I harvested the outer leaves on all of them and put them in my green bags and then planted the centres and had delicious butter, green, and red leaf lettuce all year round!!
How?! I’ve tried doing it several times (water jar, soil, jar to soil, changing water just water, changing water to then soil) and I always ended up with Dead, Rotting Lettuce despite leaving the root balls + a cluster of baby leaves
@@spacecat8511 I honestly just put them in some vertical green bags in the shade and they grew! Actuall, those bags were old ikea plastic hanging bags that stacked, instead of getting rid of them, I repurposed them for these guys. That said, I am in Vancouver, Canada, it's cooler here, so maybe temperature had something to do with it?
@@northshoregirl72 Maybe. I live in Michigan, and ended up trying in winter or early spring
How deep is the soil you planted them in?
@@saludosalsol Fairly large Indoor pot (I’ve been trying mostly in winter, though I’ve moved them by windows for light or outside when it was warmer) So…at least “hand deep” to the bottom? The pot didn’t have a drainage hole though, so I’m not sure if I overwatered it or not
Regardless of getting produce or not, this kind of thing is perfect to get children interested in fruit, veg, and tubers and growing things in general. And perfect for letting them grow plants on their windowsills, and that sense of satisfaction, as at the end of it, transplanting them into a pot the child can decorate, and have a healthy collections of interesting plants
My mother has been doing this my whole life. Regrowing from scraps set up in the window seal above the kitchen sink. It was a treat for us kids to watch things grow and then eventually get to put them in the garden out back in our tiny yard. I've kept this going as an adult and in my college years back in the 90's people thought I was crazy for covering my little room in growing plant scraps... but they were always amazed by my yield.
Did she ever use some that were in the fridge?
@@FirstNameLastName-zu9so i did! i cut a bit above the root and refrigerated it. noticed leaves regrew inside the ref so i planted them.
> _people thought I was crazy_ what's better, filling space with edible plants which are beautiful or fill the space with inedible plants? it's nice that you planted and useful
@@user-iw6vf4vl7n Having fruits & vegetables sourced from your garden can save money & keep you eating well in an emergency Its better than eating canned trash after trade slows down because of a hurricane like your average consumer
Green onions are the best kitchen scrap regrow. They grow super fast and require very little care so they're a great to grow right in the kitchen and just cut and come again. I've kept the same patch from a bunch I bought almost 2 years ago going! I once cut all of them clear down to the whites and within 6 hours there was at least 1/4 inch of new green growth so if you're an impatient gardener, space limited or just need an easy win to build confidence go for the green onions!
Thank you! Im brand new and glad to see this comment as we use green onions A Lot! Glad to know they're a great go to!
I really need to try them again. Every time I did in the past, they started out great but then rotted in the water at some point, even though I kept changing it. Maybe I need to leave longer stems and put them in soil earlier...
@@charlisabeth Yes, mine all kept rotting as well! I changed the water daily but couldn't find anyone struggling with the same problem
Yeah iv been having the rotting problem, the bottoms eventually posion the water
@@charlisabeth with green onions because there is still root attached I usually only have them in a water dish for 3 days and no longer than a week; that's usually enough time for new roots to start pushing through. If they sit in the water too long I find they die when transplanted. If they're really fresh and have a lot of healthy root I don't even bother with the water I just put them right in soil and they're happy.
This year we had a surprise scrap garden. We toss kitchen scraps into the lower naturalized area of our yard. Occasionally, I'll clear the area with a weed eater. About 4 weeks ago I went to this area to work and found 8 tomato plants and a butter squash plant. The tomatoes are now about 6' tall, covered in young fruit and doing great. From a single main stem, the butter squash covers an area that is about 8' x 15' with several that are almost ready to be picked. It opens new male & female flowers daily which I pollenate. Finding these things thriving in this area motivated me to clear the whole space and put in an assorted veggie garden. First frost in this area of South Carolina is typically in December, so there is plenty of time. Thanks for the video.
I have 2 fully fruiting apple trees in Mt back yard that I grew from seed (taken from a supermarket granny smith apple). The apples are just like granny smiths! I only get like 10 of them (the birds get stuck into them so sometimes less), but honestly, I'm just happy they grew at all! I had many people telling me it was a waste of time and they'd never produce, but here we are. Time goes faster than people think, so if you want to give it a go - don't let how long it might take hold you back 😀
I used to have s Granny Smith in my yard. Find out about pruning your tree properly. That should help it improve. Properly is the key word there, so you don't do it wrong
It's amazing you got such good trees out of seeds. Apples especially.
Are there any apples that grow well in tropical environments? I hear the Dorsett Golden can take the heat but I need to confirm before trying if there are any other varieties.
@@jokeryoda3714 , I'm growing Red Delicious apples in huge flower pots , I bring them in the winter time and grow them inside , they are very resilient and hardy , you could try planting them under a bigger tree so that are partially shaded , they will still grow and you will need Bees or bugs to pollinate the blossoms but that will take 5 to 7 years before it will bloom .
impressive they'd be like granny smiths! Apples are interesting in that from a seed, they're unlikely to be like the parent tree much at all! All granny smith apples are genetic clones, if you plant a seed it's a roulette if it's even edible and not crabapples :)
At the start of the pandemic I increased our garden space. Primarily because I knew i was going to have time on my hands. Daughter decided that I'd done it to ward off starvation, and created 3 additional 10x10 garden beds. She filled them with sprouting store bought potatoes, dried beans from my pantry, regrow lettuce, beat tops for greens, and carrot tops we made pesto from. Store bought produce salvaged seeds, for the most part didn't produce for her, with one major exception. Bell peppers. She got unbelievable results. Big plants, tons of peppers. Last summer we picked out quality seeds together and she had even more fun. It has been awesome having this to do together.
You must buy local or organic. Many name brand are made infertile.
@@SRose-vp6ew Most grocery store bell peppers are fertile, at least for the first generation. I've been growing them that way for decades. Hybrids aren't supposed to be fertile, especially long term, butt sometimes they will surprise you. 🤓🍻
A lot of people don't realize a large bulk of the seeds produced by grocery store produce are non viable because the plant is hybridized in a way that renders it sterile (think mules). Heck, the strawberries you see in stores are triploid, meaning they have three sets of genes instead of two. A majority of the seeds bred to produce what you eat are strictly regulated by the USDA if you're in the U.S., and their breeding is actually considered intellectual property of their developers. (Like monsanto)
@@IAmBuddythedecibwave - agreed. And some of it was climate related. She had 10 chickpea plants that were incredibly healthy and produced 30 chickpeas. All other pods were empty. The peppers were a huge success, but that's it. We have a hobby farm that covers about an acre at this point. She gets a seed budget to try new things in her experimental garden beds, and if good, we grow more. Delicata squash is the winner this year and I've got 10 plants in the fall garden. Highly recommend. Shes got a few hybrid varieties she's growing too. We won't rely on hybrids, but I will use them if I have them. And I encourage her curiosity. Mashed potato squash? Interesting if not practical!
@@IAmBuddythedecibwave Even if a seed is viable, it will look nothing like the parent plant. I've gotten green pepper volunteers, from cores that I've thrown directly into the garden to compost. I just let the volunteers grow instead of pulling them, because the bees are crazy about the flowers. The fruit has never grown into those big, beautiful green peppers you see in the grocery stores. Instead, it's mini-fruits. Still, they're completely edible and taste great.
I did the potato bucket experiment this year with one potato we had forgotten about. Quartered it, put it in 4 buckets, waited for the leaves to die, and wound up with 6 pounds of potatoes. My wife's mind was blown(the past two years have been learning a lot from me.) I have been doing gardens for 20 years, but had never tried doing potatoes. I was very satisfied.
That’s so cool. I wanted to try that. Glad to see it actually works. Thanks for sharing.
Potatoes are so easy.
Potatoes are amazingly productive. My mother threw out a moldy potato. I pulled it out of the garage and planted it. It grew into a small little plant so I was a little disappointed. Then it flowered with beautiful blue/ purple flowers. I was excited again. When it died back, I was amazed by how many tubers it produced. I just kept digging up more and more. It was like a treasure hunt. I was shocked by that little plant that I barely took care of was so productive. 😃
@@glenncordova4027 I literally told my wife "It was like a treasure hunt." I did more this year. We eat a lot of potatoes lol. Mine have already begun to shoot up the plant out of the ground, so I am excited.
I'm growing my food from scraps for the first time in my life. I'm blown away how fun and interesting this is for my wife and I. Considering the prices of food these days we are better off to grow our own. Thanks to Trudoh.
Amazing video! The young lady in the video has a great voice for live television! Never skips a beat, clear in both annunciation, presentation...I learned a lot, without lots of distraction, and music, as well Thank you so much for sharing!
If you have a reptile as a pet, the regrown lettuce is great. Once it gets roots, just plant in your tank. It's pretty and edible.
Thats such a good idea! I want to try having a reptile one day and I will remember to plant some lettuce in their tank :)
@@daft_mervy Remember that lettuce isnt too big a fan of heat, and many reptile enclosures will exceed the heat and moisture tolerances of lettuce. Might just rot.
@@derpychicken2131 yeah kind of wondering if they are just saying this or actually have done it. I've known lettuce to wilt easily.
Also wouldn't that be incredibly unhygienic?
Reptiles cannot survive on lettuce alone! I hope you all know that!
I've grown the carrot but not for eating the leaves. I let them flower out and collected the seeds at the end of the season.
Oh that’s a good idea, I might try this
I’ve done the same for lettuces, bok choy, celery, leeks, green onions and onions, Malabar spinach, carrots, and many more. Free seeds
nice! I wanted to try the same thing, but they kept molding. I didn't know, until this video, they were supposed to be in the light
@@mattbuszko rinse containers and put new water every few days will help too
@@lanngo1086 cam on ban a :)
Bit of an interesting story: I believe it was around 5-6 years ago that I decided to take a seed from an orange I got at the grocery store and see if I could grow it. I followed some guides on how to get the best germination rates and soon enough a little seedling popped up! Several years later and it’s still going strong sitting on my windowsill in a pretty big pot as the plant is slowly turning into a small tree. Eventually I will have to plant it outside where it won’t be constricted to a pot and can grow freely. It’s funny cause my goal was never to get any fruits from it, I just wanted to see if I could do it haha. It’s one of my big achievements having managed to keep it alive for so long since oranges really aren’t native to my country (Sweden)
This is a cute story
I don’t think it will survive outside in Sweden.
green onions are the main thing I see being viable with this. I have a ton growing in my greenstalk and they all came from the grocery store!
My work has me cut pounds of green onions a week so i usually collect the white stumpy root part and honestly, a glass with a bit of water worked flawlessely. Soil lasts longer but you will get more onions regardless what you do its so easy
I have found that green onions also grow best - especially in soil.
Yeah I've gotten to the point that once I bring them home from the store I plunk them into a jar with some water so they can stay fresh and perky.
Everytime i try to regrowing green onion, the bottom always rot. You think i should not keep it always in water? I mean, should i just let it in water only several minute per day? I have no idea :(
@@geraldinetitarina2236 I plant mine directly in soil.
Funny story about regrowing, I once had potatoes that had so many of these potato stems, that I removed them bc the potatoes still looked good, so casually I threw them away in the garden as I didn't have a compost at the moment. Two months pass by, and I was amazed that there were potato plants even though I didn't plant any, so I looked closer and see these little stems just started growing, they are still in the ground and I know there are some potatoes at least because I took a peek beneath the surface
Yep! That's how they start sweet potato slips.
A few weeks ago I found the onions for a early spring stew. They were either blackish, or had sprouted. I chucked the sprouted ones in the herb bed--They have grown tall, with puffy flowers on top. Chopped up, the 2 feet of stem are fantastic. You just never know.
You shouldn't use potatoes that have started growing and turned green at the surface. The potatoes contain a toxic chemical, something called solanine I believe. Kindly research it.
Thanks, but my potatoes hadn't turned green. They had just started sprouting shoots.
Jack and the potatoes 😂
Glad she mentioned the thing about potatoes. I'd love to buy some red-potatoes from the grocery store, the ones no one would buy, and just shove them into a bag, wait a bit, and let them start to sprout. I could start a nice garden of reds and get some decent results. Only time I kinda got screwed over is when some bugs got in and destroyed my crop. I've also had success at regrowing onions from the lower part of the bulb. The problem is that it was more a luck of the draw as it happened maybe 2 out of the seven to twelve times I've done it.
And those 2 out of 7 grew into full bulbs?
@@Lee-tg7ws Surprisingly, they did grow into full bulbs. They weren't giant onions, but a decent small to medium sized onion. As said, I think it was a fluke because I couldn't replicate what happened.
@@amanawolf9166 I see. Thank you
I had a forgotten onion in my kitchen for about a month an suddenly I found it with very big stems (like green onions) coming out of it. It scared me hahah The "trick" was having them in a dark humid area
I think it depends on the season. In summer mine rot n in winter they grow. I’m in zone 7 in SE TN.
Another good kitchen scrap to grow are pineapple tops. That big green leaf top you normally cut off and never eat can be preserved in a cup of water and eventually replanted in your garden. If you live in a warm environment like I do (Florida), it'll grow into a new pineapple plant and will eventually grow a new pineapple fruit. I don't think it'll fruit properly in a cooler climate, but they seem easy enough to regrow into a new plant. All the pineapple plants in our yard were from store bought pineapple tops and most grew fruit.
We live in a colder climate. My wife rooted a pineapple top ant pur it in a larger pot. She kept it indoors on a south window sill. Two years later she had a small pineapple. We ate it, and it was great 😋
@@marvinturchinetz1955 how cute, love it
I've grown then in Florida for years. They grow well. But they take a long time to mature. And right about the time I think to harvest then.. wham.. a racoon or something eats it.. most of the time. I finally quit growing them. lol So easy, plant and forget really, but often disappointing because of critter theft. What can ya do.
Wow! That's so cool. I didn't know we could grow pineapple in Florida. I thought they were solely from Hawaii.
I tried this with Celery and now we have a huge celery plant, that produces so much, and its all we really need because we don't use celery that much.
It will flower. Drop seed. And you will have celery every year.
FIND OTHERS WHO WOULD LOVE TO SHARE/TRADE YOU, ETC. I CAN CELERY/ONION & CARROTS FOR SOUPS. MY CELERY LEAVES ARE 10 X THE SIZE OF ANY IN THE STORE, & BEAUTIFUL, BUT THE STOCKS ARE HALF THE SIZE ! LOL TASTE WONDERFUL THOUGH.
@@chinatownboy3368 DRIED CELERY SEEDS ARE VERY DELICIOUS AS A SPICE, AS WELL.
neat!!
Chris did such a great job explaining this - she's awesome. Does she have her own channel? If she doesn't she should totally get a channel!
She doesn't, but she's on IG at @fluent.garden
@@epicgardening She is a wonderful addition
Chris totally should start a KZhead channel! She’s so well spoken.
@@epicgardening Uncle, it sounds like you and Jacques are going to be out of a job.
Who owes epic homesteading?
I've had a lot of success regrowing carrots from the tops. Also potatoes. We ate some of our own potatoes yesterday. I once grew a massive avocado tree from a seed with a shoot in it. It started bearing fruit after eight years and were the biggest (600g - 1kg) and tastiest avos anyone had ever tasted. I've moved to a cooler climate now and left my tree behind, but it's still going strong!
I had fun growing garlic last year. I took the 10 biggest cloves off a bulb (ate the rest) and grew 10 new bulbs! I also grew turmeric from pieces I got at the store and I've done scallions too.
Chris is fantastic! This is the kind of video I want. Fast. To the point. Intelligent. Informative! She needs her own channel!
Great video guys! Lettuce is currently $13 a head in Australia due to the Queensland flood crisis so this will definitely help out!
Wow
You can grow your own for sure :) I believe in you
Lettuce is really easy to regrow and it grows fast
😂 $13 for crunchy water and pesticides
OMG that’s WW1 inflation prices they had in Germany
Thanks for the clarification and debunking. Have to share this with you. I bought a small kiwi plant. I live in the Netherlands and I planted the kiwi in my garden. Within 3 years it had grown insanely and covered the entire 8m fence. After that it took about 6 years before it bore fruit (a whopping 10 kiwis😂) what impressed me a lot was the stem. It got all wooded and about 15cm at the widest point. Anyway, if you live in a colder climate don't expect many kiwis
I'm curious if it will start giving more fruit as it gets older, especially with the insane summers we've been having. Then again, they don't last very long...
Gaaf!! Zou je de plant ook meer kunnen snoeien? Ik wil ook een kiwi plant, maar het hoeft niet mijn hele tuin te bezetten :'l
for kiwi to fruit, you need both a male and a female plant. we used to have about 1 male to every 8 female in the orchard. to have gotten any fruit, there may be a male a little distant. Perhaps you can get a cutting off it to grow your own closer.
@@dragscreen That is an amazing tip, that makes a lot of sense, thanks 👍
I wasn't even listening for like a third of this video because the background of whatever greenhouse she is in in most of the clips is sooooo captivating. Looks like such a peaceful and beautiful place 🤩
This makes me really happy. I have been getting those "living lettuce" (2 for $5) and started tossing the root systems in glasses of water. I have been experimenting myself starting this last week and to see this video is fantastic. I am excited to get them planted this weekend.
This is hydroponic growing. Nutrients are added to the water which is pumped through the system to oxygenate it. I made my own system in a NovLite covered in porch. Drilled holes in a square down pipe for the plastic plant containers, repurposed my husbands home brew barrel for the water and nutrients, used an aquarium pump and some hose. Grew lettuce, tomatoes and basil until the white fly appeared in huge numbers. All the gear can be purchased at hydroponic shops.
I started doing germinating of mango seeds have one that is actually growing fast. I also have pomegranate and banana trees on my deck. I have done the lettuce I got some but it was starting to be micro- lettice
I do great with pinaple too I have about 5 now. Got 2 pineapples this year
Yes! Im doing great with pineapples too! And bananas. Im going to plant avacodo tree and maybe a lemon tree.🤔
Had a similar result. My celery was really taking off, even after they went in the ground. Until it got very hot, very quick. Green onions do not disappoint. Even with the heat, they're really producing. Same with left over little potatoes. Have not yet tried carrots or beets. I love the greens too. Will try another time.
My celery has been going strong in a pot in the windowsill for ~ 5 months now! I don't really like celery, but this gives me just enough to make chicken soup with once in a while without wasting a whole package of celery!
I have 2 organic celery cuttings I put in a dresser drawer growing on the East side of our 2 story home. It gets a peek of early sun however stays cool enough to thrive. The one I planted months ago puts out celery tastier than the one we had before. We use it in several recipes.
Hi✋ potatoes grew? I was scared to try regular instead of seed potatoes
@@BestGranny10 Mine were grocery ones that were turning green and had the little "eye" roots getting longer. I just chucked them in to see what would happen. 3/4 send up leaves! I am in zone 7a, 6900ft piñon/juniper forest, alkaline soil, but quite amended in a container. We get 280 days a year of intense sunshine. I put them in around April 10th this year. Normally, I have to wait till May.
@@BestGranny10 yep I used a potato that sprouted. Put it in a jar for school project. Put it in the ground after a while and mounded the soil up after a while. Grew cute little potato’s.
I remember one "regrowing hack" that was commonly used way before the days of the internet. Beets, turnips, carrots and rutabaga were used in this way to create more green feed for livestock.
I really hate those gardening regrow hacks which misdirect and misunderstand people by oversimplifying stuffs. Thanks for supporting this awareness by making this video.
True but if they encourage people to begin gardening there’s definitely no harm in that.
6 months ago I came across some organic mangoes I ate all of them and took the seed out and now I have a small tree hopefully it will produce fruit💛🌱
Yes in 5-6years
Doing this with cherries. It’s well worth the wait
Good luck! My dad had much success with his Mango tree from seed. 🥭
Are they self-fertile?
I JUST PLANTED MY ROOTED SEED > BUT < I MAY NOT KEEP IT AT ALL SINCE I LOOKED UP THE PROCESS & IT SAID IT'S RELATED TO < POISON IVY > ! UGH.... LOL
Fun is definitely something people should highlight because if it does bore fruit, leaves, stem or outright grow, you will either have a lovely foliage or just fun way to see things grow. I am growing Pandan leaves (I do live in the tropics) for fun and to make pandan syrup.
So appreciated this video. I've been unsuccessfully growing these scraps for years wondering why they don't worlk for me like the hacks show. Now I know why. This told me everything I needed to kjow. Kuddos on sharing Chris with us on your channel. She's awesome!
When I harvested my bok choy, I cut it off just above the soil level, and was surprised to see more bok choy growing out of the base a few days later! It was pretty fast and tastes just as good!!
I took the bottom of celery, put it in water and it took several weeks to grow roots but once it finally did I planted it in the garden and it is doing well and about 14 inches tall!! it looks awesomely healthy!
FYI celery is not a deep rooter. It was probably ready before you noticed roots. They're literally tiny.
You are so well-versed in this field of study- this is amazing to watch, thank you!
Great information. I have tried many of these and the lettuce seems to be the best so far. I have also put the root end of onions in the ground and I get quite a lot of 'spring' onions. I love sweet potato, but sometimes I don't get to it in time and roots start sprouting. You don't even have to bury these in the soil, the roots dig themselves in. I have a patch that I grow these in, and let me tell you, it's years later now, about 6 or 7, and I STILL get potatoes. I think I've pulled them all out, but no. This is the vegetable that just keeps giving!! I don't know how much of a difference it makes, but I live in the tropics in Cairns, Far North Queensland. Our weather is hot, hotter or cyclonic. But, sweet potatoes seem go on, and on, and on..... :)
Bringing Chris onto this channel was such a smart move! Love learning for such a knowledgeable and articulate PNW gardener!!
So glad to hear that!
@@epicgardening Uncle, this may be your Waterloo. As it is, people think your name is Eric. They know Chris' name.
I am harvesting 6 Vidalia onions this week that I grew from 3 onion bottoms. They are not huge, but they appear to be edible. Four of them actually set flowers and possibly seeds.
I EXPERIMENTED...: } I CUT THE SPROUTS AT ABOUT 6 + INCHES ON ALL BUT ONE. IT DEVELOPED A BUD...SO I CLIPPED THAT SPROUT AND IT'S GROWING MORE SPROUTS AGAIN. : }
Plant some of the seeds in the fall, then cover the young plants to protect them in winter. You might get some nice onions in the spring.
Onion flowers are tasty garnish, too
I love how the informations stated were justified and explain properly, so many peoples make videos without much explanations, which doesn't make any sense when making a tutorial video
Great video - thank you very much for taking the time to test all of this. Most people are baffled when you tell them that planting a seed from a fruit purchased at a market will NOT yield a plant that bears fruit resembling the original fruit purchased.
I did try leeks and they did grow in water. Unfortunately the cats kept pulling them out
I had that same issue!😆
😆
Get rid of the cats
@@user-lc5uo5uj2f get rid of your kids or dogs or wife
I kept leeks in a pitcher with water for a whole winter. They were supposed to be food but became houseplants. They were on a high shelf and the leaves grew over four feet long. Didn't know they could do that.
I love green onions 🧅 so I regrew some scraps last year and saved the seeds. Planted them this spring and have had a great harvest this year too.
I have green onions all over my garden and 1/2 of them are from market green onions. All I did was put all the onion bottoms of market green onions in the ground. I only used an inch. Now I have many green onion bunches and tons of saved seeds. This year, I already have balls of onion seeds all over the garden. I will probably collect some, though green onions seem to be perennial for me here, so I really do not need any more seeds. I always let them flower though, because the pollinators love the flowers.
I tell people buying seeds to cheat a bit with store bought green onions. Throwing the store bought ones in dirt and eating those would give the babies more than enough time to grow.
@@yeevita can I ask a dumb question? How deep do you plant the green onion bottoms in your soil?
@@gardengrrlWendy I just put it just under the soil. You can actually just piace it on a shallow platter of water and it will grow. I am in a dry location, so I lose some to drying out sometimes, but I still get plenty. We actually do not buy green onions anymore since we have lots out back. I harvest by cutting just above the roots and have patches of green onions in the garden year round. Chives, too. So many chives that I turn some under the soil periodically.
Hi, where are the seeds? I didn't know about that
I loved how she explained things so well!! I feel like videos usually just show off fast results, and she explained in a smart way that didn't make me feel stupid. She used plant science/biology casually and not like its exclusive knowledge I wouldn't understand. I found her and followed!! I'd happily let her teach me anything about growing because she gained my trust by showing me realistic tips in a way that ties into what I already know. I'm very impressed and happy to have come across this. 😊
That looks like such a beautiful greenhouse, love it with the smooth hill outside in the background too 😊🌿
I'd thought about regrowing carrot tops to get seeds from the flowers, but it didn't occur to me that it would attract good insects as well. Thanks Chris!
There's actually a species of butterfly called the Black Swallowtail that lays its eggs exclusively on plants in the parsnip family (carrots, parsnips, parsley, dill, etc). I learned this the hard way when the caterpillars decimated my dill patch, but I was told they prefer carrot greens amd flowers - so plant those as a "sacrificial" crop. It's definitely a good use for used carrots.
Breaking news - Beets and Celriac (celery root) CAN regrow. I did like you, put the crown in a small dish with water. When small new leaves started showing, I put it in my high raised bed. After a few months... I harvested a NEW beet root. Its crown is actually now again in the same spot after we ate it. The thing is - you can't expect it to grow in two or three weeks in a dish of water. Put it in the ground and wait patiently. They DO regrow the root.
My celery, bok choi, chives and tomatoes did grew roots when I placed in a cut in half soda plastic bottle filled with soil and placed in the window. They are doing great!! Will try the others you suggested
I did not have great success with many of these vegetables but I had great success with scallions cut down to 1” from the bottom and had 18 plants in a 18” planter. I also have a number of garlic growing great from only 1 supermarket garlic head and planted them in large pots with impatients and pink geraniums- so beautiful! Neighbors were floored that they were garlic. I also buy the herb plants in the pots from the produce department. They are cheaper than the garden centers, grow better and I propagate cuttings under a grow light until they are big enough to go outside. I planted them around the bases of the potted tomato and pepper plants- so pretty and they help control bugs and deer. I grew the peppers and tomatoes from the seeds of supermarket ones I saved during the winter when I couldn’t grow my own. As a kid we had a large open compost pile next to the garden and in the spring we would take bushel baskets and dig up whatever grew up in it. We would get everything from tomatoes to potatoes in there and saved a lot of money on seeds and seedlings.
Been growing green onions in a cup of water on my windowsill for ages. I almost always have some there. I often refresh them with new ones, but I feel like I can get at least 4x the amount of green onions as I buy just by keeping the roots in some water.
Yeah I’ve been buying hello fresh cause I’m lazy and their green onions are massive and I’ve also been growing mine in a cup of water and they are like world record green onions there huge. Like the base of them are the size of shallots it’s nutty
Once the green onions regrowth gets too small, you can put them in some soil and they'll grow back huge again :)
4x sounds about right before they start running out of nutrients. After all, the mass of any given plant is 99% captured from the air, not the soil.
Ive tried many times to grow green onions from seed, it never works, but I do take the left over one inch of my green onions with roots, directly plant them in the soil and grow bigger and healthier green onions than the original ones that were bought at the store. So its like two for the price of one. Just this morning I went out and cut seven or eight of them from my balcony garden which had grown quite big, washed, chopped them, and put them in my Ziplock bag of green onions kept in the freezer. I started a new bag and by the end of Summer, I hope to have enough to last through the Winter.
I've had the best results growing them indoors in decomposable containers. Then I slowly get them used to the sun before transferring to outside. Even then out of 14 containers 3 seeds each, only 5 or so containers survived outside at most. Potassium water boots really help!
I just started some spring onions too! I put in water for 3 days then transferred to a pot. It's been 7 days and they've tripled in size. Predictably the ones with the biggest bulbs on the bottom have done best. I've put them outside for some sun everyday and watered a little. I'm impressed. Glad I caught this video because I was wondering what to try next, salad veg is the way to go I think. Next will be herbs. I'm a total beginner with no flower beds so it's all containers. It's fun.
I have pots of green onions all over my yard. If left alone the will bulb up and you can use them like shallots, they will eventually fliwer and seed. If you orevent that tgey can over winter and become huge. They will be tougher but work great scissored into a potroast or soup where they have the cooking time to become tender.
I have multi generations of onions from store bought parents. Green onions readily transplant, so focus on getting them sprouted in starter containers, then transfer.
Thank you so much Chris and Kevin! I just picked up living lettuce and I can't wait to grow it!
Great video. I have always made it a habit to keep back a couple of organic potatoes, garlic cloves, onions, spring onions and the like, to grow fresh produce. I also keep a small bucket in the kitchen for fruit and veg scraps and then dig them into reserved areas around the garden and am constantly delighted by what grows from them. Tomatoes are really easy to grow from seed, as well as pumpkins and courgettes. Once I had some watermelons trying to grow but where I lived at the time was quite warm and dry, so they didn't get the volume of water they needed to be successful. I have been growing microgreens from celery and carrots with great success using similar methods as shown here but I haven't yet tried the beetroot. After seeing it is just as easy as the celery and carrots, I will definitely be doing that next time. I am also looking forward to trying out the Romaine lettuce. Mother nature is so generous!
I've only been gardening 2ys. I've been considering dumping scraps to see what pops up.. How do you tell the difference between new growth from scraps and plain ol weeds? Appreciate any advice
@@ginasipos4373 After a while, you will learn to recognise the varying shapes, textures and scents from the leaves and flowers of different fruit and veges growing from your root scraps and seeds. When I first started, I simply allowed things to develop of their own accord and learnt as I went along, also noticing which plants preferred which area of the garden to grow and bear their produce the best. You may also find it helpful to keep a note of what you dug into that particular area of your garden and remember to choose a different area for each time you bury your scraps. Have fun ☺
Thanks Epic Gardening! I learned the hard way when I tried growing mangoes 😂 Planted 5 seeds and I realized I cannot wait 5+ years and bought a grafted one 😂😂
I wish I could grow mangoes in 7b. So I'm growing pawpaw trees instead.
@@k3rr1D lucky and congratulations! That must have felt so great! My seedlings did not last a year 😂
You can use them as an ornamental house plant if you can't wait for it to grow that big
I'd been struggling getting my green onions to grow from seed, so i tried planting the scraps instead and now i have beautiful green onions after only a few weeks. I'm never buying seed packets for onions again lol.
I tossed green onion bulbs in water and the next day had growth already! They look great and have grown so much in 12 days
Let a few continue growing and you'll have your own seeds.
Thank you so much for this! It was so helpful and informative. I have to teach my Grade 5 students how to plant vegetables and I had zero clue how to go about with it since I've never done it before but this video really saved me. Thank you so much!!!
Had a similar experience with a "living herb" plant that my sister bought. It was basil, and she used what she needed. A few weeks later I spotted it in the fridge and thought it looked kinda sad. So I took it outside, planted it in the garden, said, "Good luck!" and left. Cut to weeks (months?) later and I went out to the garden and was like "Wait wtf is this plant OMG IT'S THE BASIL." I guess it *really* liked the soil and where I put it because it was thriving. Had fresh basil the rest of the season. Definitely worth the few bucks at the store!
If it was in the fridge, wasn't it intended for consumption, haha? But congratulations on a great harvest!
Chris’ diction and mannerisms are so professional and clear! She really makes it feel like the channel is growing into a whole ass enterprise.
She's QUITE a good speaker - Kevin
Thank you, Chris and Kevin, I know you do not like the food scraps thing but let me explain.... I am a pusher of regrowing kitchen scraps. Cabbage works very well. When rooting cores I take off all the leaves, celery stalks, except for the young buds and a few extra leaves-wasted real food that draws energy from the core, instead of growing new leaves from the energy in the core. Somebody grew rice sprouted from brown rice in a store and that same fellow rooted and grew a broccoli from the leaves off a (flower). The broccoli got a plant from the bottom where the roots come out. If people are looking for a dinner out of these, they have a long wait. But that is not the object. We have people so poor in this country so malnutrinated, that this could be a boon to them. The cost is zero so anyone can do it. If things crash in this country, we will have people starving. We have to make this work, no matter who does not like it. It gives hands with nothing, something and HOPE. It gives hands something to do that is positive. Hopefully, it spurs an interest in growing things to make a plan to grow food WORK. In the food you grew Chris, in three weeks, first week for scallions, there was something to eat. I would not worry about prize winning plants as much as morsels in my mouth. We need to educate, yes, there is a lot of detail. But it can be simple as well, it does not take much to put vegetation in a dish of water. We may have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps one day. We simply have to tell ourselves, YES, WE CAN. I want to see everyone's beautiful face on the other side of this. I want to come out better than we were before. Thank you both again. Much appreciated.
I saw on another video that you need to "slice" a bit from the root because commercial growers put something on it to stop roots. This should make a difference on your celery and lettuce
Brand new to gardening here. This was extremely helpful! Thanks 🎉
An important thing to consider when growing from seeds found in grocery store fruits, especially fruit trees is to check if they are likely hybrids. Hybridization is the process of crossing two elite lines together to create a elite combination of traits, but if you plant those seeds (F2) they lose the genetic consistency. If you grow a tree or crop from seed it may be worth considering spending the extra dollars to get a seed pack for higher quality and quantity. Dont let that stop you from having fun though!
I find that with tomatoes. I love the hybrids that aren't as acidic (mostly sun gold, they're so sweet!), but somehow I end up with random tomato plants in my garden, so something somewhere must have decent seeds. I just don't remember putting any tomato seeds into the compost, so I don't know how old they are. Still taste good whatever they are. My dad had the same thing happen when some cucumbers from Costco when he threw some bad parts into his garden and tilled it up. We had a few bonus cucumbers!
With fruit bought from supermarkets and such rather than direct from growers has likely been subjected to preservation treatments that may pose an issue if you are going to plant the seeds afterwards. Treating them with radiation to kill any microorganisms present from before they were wax coated and such is fairly common to help them survive the long global supply chains of the supermarkets in saleable condition for example. Generally this is probably not something you would want, not unless you are planning to grow them for research purposes trying to identify some beneficial traits among the random mutations and eventually be able to breed them into desirable strain, the result is unlikely to ever be a net positive as is without that lengthy process. This is less likely to be an issue with fresh produce bought directly from a grower but supermarkets have other priorities than seed quality that are in conflict here.
@@joylox SunGold’s are a very vigorous hybrid. They do indeed produce a lot of volunteer offspring, but the majority of them do not retain that wonderful taste of the parent plant. Trying them winds up being Tomato Roulette. It’s not that hybrids won’t produce offspring. They simply don’t reliably produce offspring with the qualities of the parent. That said, there’s a grower in Germany, who has been working to stabilize an open pollinated version of SunGold. I think Baker Creek Seeds may have carried it. There are many many heirlooms that have low acidity and wonderful flavor. Gold Medal/Rose Gold (depends on who’s selling it) and German Johnson are two you might enjoy.
Yes, works best with heirloom or organic varieties.
You mean I WON'T be able to turn bean sprouts into fresh corn? Dang you Blossom, dang you!!! (seriously do people still believe Blossom is anything but a huge scam?!) Also I never thought about growing new lettuce from from those hydroponic ones. Very cool!
Speaking of sprouts, that's an easy way to use things that went to seed, like broccoli which really adds a good flavour to salads.
Your voice is PERFECT for news
Good analysis that puts a lot into logical perspective. Thx! On a side note, I had a Kale plant that lived six years. He was about 5.5 feet tall. His sixth year he became infested with aphids. We ceremoniously cut him down and buried his parts in a worm bin. RIP Mr. Kale.
Good to see Chris coming back for more collabs. She is awesome!
Loved this! Thank you for putting this together.
lmao the beggining got me. Loved how you popped outta nowhere.
I love Chris' content and info... but deep down inside I was expecting Kevin roasting a bunch of dumb videos and instead I got a lesson that I was grateful for. Mixed feelings.
Don't worry, I'll be back to roast 😂
I was definitely waiting for a roasting session 🤣
@@epicgardening roast peppers ?
Ha same
@@epicgardening Aunty Chris stole the spotlight from you and Jacques.
My pineapple, green onions, passion vine, ginger, tumeric, tomato plants and pepper plants are from "scraps". I've also done potato and sweet potato in the past.
This is the deep detail an apartment farmer needs. Thank you!
This was so much fun to watch. I've done this!
I re-grow my cuttings of green onions and they grow great! Favorite plant in my garden this year
This is what I needed at the start of the pandemic cause I thought I could infinitely regrow kitchen scraps, but never realize the plants' lifespans. This explains a lot of when I tried to regrow my scraps
Let them go to seed.
You have convinced me. I want to grow kitchen scraps now. 😃❤️
This is exactly what I needed!!! Thank you for this video ❤
When meyer lemons come back around, I'm gonna start a few seedlings. Citrus usually grow true to type and I like the wait. Also a super pretty plant.
Would a navel orange grow true to type as well? I've been wanting one of those for a while and always wondered....
@@qualityfirst5119 Usually, no.
@@chinatownboy7482 Ok, thanks for clarifying. :)
Meyer's are one of the citrus that don't come true to type. If you want a true to type lemon grow a Eureka or Lisbon lemon (the two types just sold as "lemon" at supermarkets).
Meyer lemons are a hybrid. Since they were developed from 2 different plants the seeds are unlikely to grow true to type. Stark Brothers nursery online sells Meyer lemon trees. Like all hybrid fruits they are grafted. If your state produces Meyer lemons, you might not be able to buy one and should look for a local nursery
I do the same thing with purchased hydroponically grown basil here in Austin Texas. Sweet video, thank you Epic Gardening Crew for the amazing content ! 🙌🏽
My mom's grown cabbage from the kitchen scraps. It's fun watching it grow. :)
Putting toothpicks on the sides of the veggie will keep them off the bottom & roots will grow much easier & faster. I've been doing green onions since last year and they are so easy. I only left about and inch or less on the root end, stick them in water just to cover the roots & a little bit more. When the tops are starting to grow and the roots are longer I plant them to the top of the roots. I stagger the planting so I don't end up with all of them ready at the same time. Instead of pulling the the onion I just cut the tops, leaving the roots & a little of the top. Amazingly they grew like that all summer with just one bag of onions at the beginning. I now have celery and onions growing with others to come! Thank you for all your work & effort, it is appreciated!
I needed this!! I’ve been waiting for this and I love her way of explaining things, too. Would LOVE to see a video from one or both of you about an indoor garden like one on that shelf unit she shows. I am about to set one up and try my hand at indoor things like micro-greens and lettuce and hacks like she shows here! Thanks guys!!
For microgreens: the bigger the seed, the more weight you should put on during blackout, so the sprouts start out strong by pushing the weight up. You have to experiment a bit with how much weight, but my friend runs a microgreens company and he puts up quite a bit.
Missed an important detail with the avocados there. They are almost always grafted because if grow from seed they usually produce a fruitless or near fruitless tree.
Actually we grew an Avocado tree from the pip. It grew to 3 meters and after 5 years it gave us one Avocado last year. This year we have seen 10+ Avocados on the tree that are still growing. With celery I grow every year from scrap and am still enjoying the plant in my salad and cooking.
@@theabino9718 you got very lucky with your avocado tree. That sort of result when grown from the pit is extremely rare.
@@FallofftheMap Thank you. Yes I am aware of that as 40 years ago another tree from a pip gave us no fruit.
I believe she did say that, she said it quickly.
Or they produce fruit that is 80% seed like my friends tree did
What a great vid! Informational and entertaining! I grow green onion scraps, and if I actually harvested them (I don't know why I have a harvesting block), I would get plenty of tasty, tender green parts. Celery does well popped directly into a little water in a cool dark corner of the pantry. It doesn't get floppy, and I think it keeps the center healthy for eventual scrap time. Lettuce is fun, but I find I only get enough for decoration. I think I read it bolts faster than just doing some baby greens from seeds. Carrot flowers smell divine! I haven't had much luck replanting scraps, but I've forgotten a carrot or two in the ground. Thanks again for the video.
I love seeing your results !
Thanks for testing these out for real!! So helpful to see a more honest show of these. 🙏🏼🔥
i have unlimited green onions now because i plant all the scrap roots
Yep me too.. I don’t think you can have too many, either :)
Same here!
Haha. I have whole bunches of green onions and they seed every year - the flower stalks are beautiful, so I end up not only with green onions that are perennial in my zone 8b garden, but tons of seeds as well haha.
You sound so much like a news reporter. What a nice voice! ♡ Thank you for the video, it makes me want to try it myself.
This is brilliant. So clear and informative. Thank you 😊
Hi! I have done the same, with also a cabbage core, a pineapple top, a horseraddish top and an avocado pit. With the celery, i pull off most of the outer shafts, and leave the middle with just 2 or 3 of the tiny leafy shoots, which enables more roots to get started out of those shaft ends, and the old leaves allow it to soak up more sunshine. My stalks dont grow real tall either, but lots of dark green very flavorable leaves! With the onions, i cut off all around the core area, and use those pices to eat. As long as you have that core, from root to tip, its plenty to get another started. Same with lettuce... pull off and use the big outer leaves, which bares more of that core base for roots to grow from. With the cabbage, what is real cool about, is that 4 or 5 plants will grow up from the core base. I didnt let it grow to form heads, but ate the fresh tender leaves as tgey grew. The horseraddish leaves have grown to 2 1/2 feet tall so far thus year. They are edible and add great flavor to coleslaw, salads, sauces, meat dishes... It does take long for those tiny hair roots to get big, but they winter over and spread, so keep an eye on them if you dont want them to take over. Its lots of fun though! Thanks for your video! 😋
Fun video to watch. This lady is a wonderful resource for all of us gardeners! Thanks!
This is the most helpful video on the internet and huge time saver, thank you!
I love experimenting… it’s amazing to see the growth… and great point that just popping what looks like scraps into some water can at least create flowers that insects love ❤️ this should be taught in school 🙏🏻
One of the other advantages of growing some of the biennial plants (which I believe many onions are as well) is that even if you don't get more food from it you can collect the seeds when it flowers to grow the following year. Living lettuce and green onions are great to stick in a pot and keep growing for a while.
Best video ever and Chris is so knowledgeable. I usually stick to the scallions but after watching I might venture out some more!