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
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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 😉
Best video ever and Chris is so knowledgeable. I usually stick to the scallions but after watching I might venture out some more!
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.
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
As far as things like the onions, leeks, celery, etc., if they are already growing in my garden, why wouldn't I just be able to cut them and leave them to grow back right in the soil they are currently growing in instead of pulling the whole plant out and starting over with them indoors?
Great video..
Could you do a collab with Brian from Next Level Gardening??
Regrowing "scraps" has never made sense to me beyond a classroom curiosity or summer kids project. The goal should be no scraps. Eat every beet green. Roast the entire beet. Only the skin remains if you don't eat that. Cutting the top off a beet to regrow greens, is more wasteful than just planting a seed in that same dirt, and getting both greens and the root. Unless an onion rolls behind my mixer and i find it sprouting, growable scraps are wasted food. Now, the lemongrass example, I'd file under propagation. It's a pain to grow to full size from seed, and gives you a huge headstart to propagate from a cutting, also that's not the scrap end in the water. Ginger is also propagation, and also takes forever to grow. You have to start it that way if you want ginger within a year. Those two make me miss leaving zone 8 for 6.
I like to regrow the scraps for fun now, it's educational to see how they do as long as expectations are correctly set! (Learned that from the carrots lol)
Before watching most of the video:
Green onions can be re-planted in our garden from the roots.
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 10×10 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.
I've been giving Chris a chance but it just doesn't feel like Epic Gardening. She has some useful information but it still feels like I'm watching a channel I didn't subscribe to. That Kevin and Jacques vibe just isn't there with her. Not trying to offend anyone it's just the way I feel about it.
Great video! I've been regrowing scraps for years. Last year I had my biggest celery ever! 🙂
I did regrow an entire stalk of celery once but it did take an entire season. Green onions do great.
If the carrot would flower, that means it would still produce seeds and we don't have to sacrifice our best produce in order to get seeds for the next growing season.
Thanks for this.
Re: kiwi! Have 2 supposedly self pollinating varieties over 5 years now never produced any fruit…tempted to buy a different variety established kiwi male …recommend?
Trying yams and sweet potato slips to cover crop in the greenhouse on Vancouver Island. Hoping this will work.
Lemongrass rooted in water did work well for me years ago as it created thicker stalks than anything grown from seed or bought if available from garden centers
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.
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 frozen 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.
Great video. Ironically people will believe blossom. Still love Kevin commentary on these rediclious video. Yeah some might work but people are being fooled. Glad you all continue to clear the air.
I took the tinfoil leftover from a burrito I had bought and grew a brand new burrito bush. It's definitely possible to grow food from your scraps people.
Brussel Sprouts are a favorite, have ten, from scraps, growing now!
I tried growing my cut up veggie tops too. Mine grew into seeds!!! I now have many carrot seeds!!!
I've tried many of these and the celery and lettuce did awesome for me. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area and we are cooler here so my celery didn't bolt. I've also propagated Kevin's favorite fruit the dragon fruit by getting a fruit with some stem left and it grew! I was so excited. Unfortunately, it's too cool here to grow actual dragon fruits on my plant but the plant itself is doing well. I'm definitely going to try the living lettuces. I never wanted to pay for them but since I can get at least 2 for 1 I think I will try.
For me growing from scraps has only worked well for onion types from leeks to green onion and the like. Celery does okay. Cabbage and lettus work a little then fail to make anything worthwhile before keeling. Carrots make nothing worthwhile. Bokchoy worked a little better than other cabbages, but not great.
I replant green onions because I like the blooms lol
I knew someone who grew an orange tree (in Florida) from the seeds of a store-bought orange. She was so excited when the little tree grew and finally bloomed and bore oranges. But the fruit was as sour as lemons! The flavor never improved no matter how long she waited or how she fertilized or whether there was a freeze or not.
Bringing Chris onto this channel was such a smart move! Love learning for such a knowledgeable and articulate PNW gardener!!
Wifey