Kitchen Scraps Gardening

Growing produce at home is as much about the experience as it is about production. There is the convenience of fresh herbs without having to go out for those little plastic clamshells from the grocery store to complete a meal. And there is the unmatched flavor of a homegrown tomato and the intoxicating scent of basil as you gather fresh leaves for pesto or pizza.

But the rewards can be so much greater than that. For example, I had an incredibly rewarding experience this year as an amateur gardener.

As the tomato season was coming to a close, I embarked on an experiment to preserve the fruits of my labor by growing new plants (rather than purchasing them as I had done in previous years). I decided to use the final tomatoes that my plants had produced to create new plants for the next season.

It was February and the plants were dry and browning, but still had a few tomatoes ripening. I took one from each of the three varieties I was growing—a San Marzano, a French heirloom and a pear-shaped cherry—and saved and dried them on the kitchen counter. I then pulled out the expired plants and replenished and amended the pots.

A simultaneous experiment was to add to the remaining soil in the pots a combo of pine shavings and manure from an overdue cleaning of my backyard chicken coop. I mixed everything right in the pots and watered for a few weeks until the weather warmed up and the soil in the pots composted a bit and lost most of its “chicken scent.”

It was March and still a bit cool. I placed the shriveled little tomatoes I had saved, one in the center of each pot, just under the soil—and waited, with minimal watering. 

By April, to my amazement, two of the three tomatoes sprouted into many new plants. As they grew, I thinned them out, leaving just one seedling in each pot and transferring one of the extras into the pot that had no germination.

By mid-summer, I was enjoying an unprecedented harvest of tomatoes from just three “regenerated” plants, without a trip to the gardening store. Try it and discover your own surprises, particularly if you want to regrow a beloved variety without having to hunt for a specific seed or plant.

Kitchen Scrap Gardening: Next level recycling

Many of us are now separating our kitchen scraps for collection in organic waste bins. Some of us have compost and worm bins or backyard chickens for our scraps. But can we also generate more fresh food for ourselves from our kitchen discards?

Welcome to another level of recycling! Grow what your farmer just grew and you enjoyed at your table, or what sprouted in your pantry or fridge before you could get to it.

Note: Locally grown vegetables are best, especially if you will be planting them outside, since our local farmers grow varieties that thrive in this area.

Garlic: A bulb of garlic for every clove

Garlic takes about eight months to grow, but it’s easy to get started. And, for every garlic clove you plant, you’ll produce an entire new bulb.

It’s best to plant garlic in late fall, around November here in Ventura County, for a summer harvest in June or July. Garlic needs full sun and soil that drains well. The garlic will produce greens in the spring that are edible. You can remove and use them, but wait until summer for the bulbs.

Cloves that have sprouted on the counter or in the fridge are great to use rather than toss, but they don’t need to be sprouting for planting. There is also no need to peel them—just remove the individual cloves from the bulb.

Plant each clove two inches deep in a pot or directly in the garden, with the pointed or sprouted end up. Leave at least four inches of space between the garlic cloves, to give them room to grow a large bulb. 

You should stop watering when the leaves begin to turn brown, to keep the garlic from rotting during its last weeks before harvesting. Garlic is ready to dig up (avoid pulling it out from the stems) after about half of the leaves become dry and yellow, and the stems fall over.

Green onions: Ongoing greens from green onions

Green or spring onions won’t multiply or produce additional bulbs, but you can regrow the green shoots. Grow them in water, near a sunny window in the kitchen, and cut off the new growth again and again for your recipes.

To get them going, check the white bulb ends for roots and make sure there are at least a few growing from the bottoms already. Trim most of the green parts from the bundle and place in a glass jar or vase with the white bulbs submerged in water to just below the green part of the onions.

New shoots will emerge after a few days. Change the water every other day to keep the green shoots coming.

Lettuce: Bonus leaves from a head of lettuce

You can regrow some tender new leaves from a scrap of your favorite lettuce. Romaine works great and most other types of head lettuce work with this method, as well as cabbage and bok choy.

Cut off and use the leaves and save the bottom one to two inches of the root end. Place in a wide-mouthed jar or shallow dish in about a half inch of water. You can remove some of the outer layers if necessary to fit your container.

Choose a sunny location inside the house for your lettuce. New leaves will begin to emerge from the center quickly because the stem still contains leaf buds that develop into leafy shoots.

Keep your lettuce producing new leaves for up to two weeks (until it goes to seed) by freshening up the water every other day. Then, feel free to save the seeds for growing in your spring garden.

Potatoes: A bucketful from sprouted potatoes

Potatoes can be grown year-round in milder temps like we enjoy here in Ventura County, particularly if you grow them in containers. Growing potatoes in buckets or bags also takes far less space and effort than planting in the ground, and makes harvesting a cinch—just empty your container and separate out the potatoes—no digging!

Like garlic cloves, potatoes are the seeds themselves for new plants. So regrowing potatoes past their prime or sprouting on the kitchen counter makes perfect sense. You can buy seed potatoes, but the success rate of using organic, locally grown potatoes as seeds for a new potato crop is high and certainly worth trying.

For the simplest method, which doesn’t require adding soil around your plants through the process, use an 8–10-gallon bucket, bag or pot, 12–16 inches deep, filled with compost. Thoroughly mix some organic fertilizer into the soil when planting to boost the size and number of potatoes. If the potatoes you are planting have lots of sprouts, you can also remove all but a couple per potato to encourage larger potatoes.

Different varieties will produce a range of yields, so it’s best to plant just two or three sprouted potatoes in your container, six to 10 inches deep, leaving an inch or two of space to add straw or mulch on top.

The mulch will help keep the soil moist by slowing evaporation, and insulate the plants from warmer temperatures. Yukon Gold is a great variety to try for first-timers, because it adapts to various soil types and produces quickly and reliably.

Place the container in a location with full sun. The soil needs to stay moist but, if you overwater the potatoes could rot. Try watering every few days when it’s warm and hopefully, as the weather cools down, you’ll have some help from the rain to keep them watered.

Your potatoes are ready when about half of the foliage turns yellow. Remove the tops and wait two more weeks for the potatoes to finish growing before emptying your container.

Typically, if you start your potatoes in late summer/early fall they should be ready to harvest in about three to four months, or just before our first frost. You can also plant in early spring for a summer harvest.

Planting in containers will give you a lot of flexibility on these schedules, so if you have sprouted potatoes on hand and want to give it a try, go for it!

Celery and fennel: New plants started in a sunny window

Both celery and fennel can be regrown by saving just an inch or two from the root end of the vegetable. Place a cutting in a dish of water so the bottom half is submerged and change the water often to keep it fresh and clean.

In just a matter of days, you’ll see greens emerge from the cutting and, after a few weeks, roots that are ready to plant in soil. You can transplant them to a deep pot or directly into your outside garden to grow an entirely new plant.

Celery and fennel are both cool-temperature crops and can be started in the fall in partial sun. But if it’s still warm outside, you can try skipping the step of soaking and plant the cuttings directly in your garden, in full shade.

Carrots, turnips & beets: Tapping new growth from taproots

In the case of taproots like carrots, turnips and beets, you regrow greens from the tops of the vegetables rather than the root end. Place the cut top (a half to one inch piece) in shallow water in a sunny spot and change the water every other day or as needed to keep it fresh and clean.

You won’t get a new plant, but in a few days, you’ll see the beginnings of more greens that you can either eat or let grow to collect seeds for new plants. Carrot greens are delicious as a pesto or a garnish for carrot soup. Beet and turnip greens are the most nutritious part of the plant, and are sweet and mild when sautéed.

Herbs: Culinary flavor rooted in plain water

An easy way to start an herb garden is to grow roots on herb clippings purchased from the store or farmers’ market. You can use most of the leaves for cooking, then just save one stem for each herb you want to grow. Make sure at least two sets of leaves remain on the top end and strip the rest.

Place the stems into small glasses or vases of water with the leaves above the surface. The submerged stem should have at least two leaf nodes (where leaves were removed). Change the water every three to four days and place the container in a bright location that gets six to eight hours of sunlight.

Depending on the type of herb, it can take several weeks for a stem to send out new roots. Wait until the new roots are at least one inch long and are branching off into smaller rootlets before planting the herbs in soil to just above the level of the roots.

Rooting herb clippings in water works well for soft-stemmed, well-loved herbs such as basil, mint, oregano, cilantro and parsley, but with patience can also be successful for woodier herbs like rosemary and thyme. You can also try planting the clippings directly into well-draining soil in spring and skip rooting them in water.

For more planting and scrap growing resources, see our story on EdibleVenturaCounty.com.