Recycling Vegetables

Recycled green onions from which I will harvest for up to six months.

Yes, you read that title correctly.

A few weeks ago, this food hacks post was circulating on Facebook. And while I've read similar ones before and have been regrowing my own green onions (aka scallions) for a few years now, there was some new and interesting information that has me diving into this idea even more.

Last summer, I even successfully resprouted two celery plants. A couple of things that I learned in doing that, I will gladly share with you. First, the celery is never as healthy in the store as what you grow yourself. That may seem obvious to you, but I never got around to blanching my celery which is what makes it look perfect and uniform in the store. I was mentally berating myself and thought perhaps I'd done something wrong because it was very green and also had a stronger flavor than store bought. 

Upon further research, I learned that blanching it actually decreases it's nutrient content. Yes, greener is better...even if it tastes a little stronger.

The second thing I learned is that the entire plant can be used! This is one reason why celery is becoming one of my favorite plants to grow. I just found this article and haven't even read it yet...but I did once read that celery leaves can be dried for use as celery salt. And regrettably, after I'd already thrown away one celery root, I discovered it could actually be eaten...and is quite expensive at my local grocery store.

Our Thanksgiving meal this past year included celery root and cauliflower puree in place of mashed potatoes. It was delicious.

I'll let the food hacks post give you the details, but once your veggies have sprouted or rooted or both, simply gather up some good compost (I need go no further than my own wormery), get out your peat moss and vermiculite (or perlite, in my case because that's all I have on hand) and stir up a really great potting mix with your dirt from previous plantings.

For my celery, I did purchase a new clay pot that is sturdy because all of my medium sized pots are currently in use. Throw some rocks or busted up clay pots in the bottom to aid in drainage, add your soil and make a well to place your sprouted celery into it.

I left the dirt level a little low so that as it grows I can continue to add more dirt. I don't want to overwhelm the baby plant with too much damp soil around it. I have had one mold and die recently because of this exact mistake.

The last step is just to cover up the old plant loosely, water, and as it grows, mound up or add to the soil as needed. Celery is a cool weather vegetable, so I'm not even concerned with it getting direct sunlight or being right under a grow light. We'll see how it does. If needed, I can always move it closer to a light source. One thing I will do differently from last summer is to tie up the stalk together as it grows.

Something new from the article I thought I'd try is onions. Finding an organic onion to sprout at my local grocery is difficult. They rarely have them although they have organic green onions year round. So when I found an organic red onion a couple of weeks ago, I snatched it up, brought it home, chopped off the root end, placed it in water and waited for it to sprout. 

It did not disappoint. 

Once it achieved some roots and three small buds, I placed it in the green "pot" pictured above. After about another week, it had three distinct shoots coming up through the soil. This is where I began following the food hacks post for direction.

Again, I mixed up my soil, but this time used a clementine wooden crate placed inside a planter's drip tray. You can barely see two sprouts in the soil. The third, I left in the green "pot". The great thing about onions is that you don't have to go very deep. In fact, the rule of thumb is green onions go deep, bulb onions stay shallow. I will even pull the soil back from them a little as they grow.

This is my first time doing this with onions. I know all gardening is a crap shoot...but if I can reuse the bottom of one purchased onion (that I would have just thrown away otherwise) to regrow three more onions, then I have cut my onion part of my grocery bill in thirds, right? Theoretically, over time, I may not need to buy onions ever again if I can keep the cycle going.

My last new experiment is with carrot tops. No, I can't regrow carrots this way, but I can sprout carrot tops. These greens can be given to our bearded dragon or eaten in salads and even juiced. They also won't take up much space and can be planted in a fairly shallow container.

Recently planted carrot top

So there you have it. Some of those crazy articles that pop in social media really do work. Try them out sometime. You just might be surprised.

And here's mine: 

In this black pot is my four month old lemon tree. Yes...lemon tree. I came across this article by a person in Canada that is growing lemon trees indoors. 

You better believe I would be all over that one!

Two of my dear friends received little lemon trees from me for Christmas, I have this one and two more that need potted. I have also had three more "surprise" ones come up in some greens and other soil. They didn't sprout initially and so the soil was repurposed and "surprise" they came up about three months behind all of the others. The added surprise is that they could be either an organic lemon, a Meyer lemon or a lime tree because I have attempted each and only thought I'd had success with the organic lemon.

My hope is to continue raising these and in a year or so start selling off some beautiful, hardy tree saplings to others who want the pleasure of harvesting their own lemons right from their own family room.

Really, does it get any better than that?