Do you feel bad about chucking those kitchen food scraps? More importantly, would you like to involve your kids AND save a bit of money? Gardening with your kitchen scraps is the perfect new project that will fulfill any and all of those needs.

You can take this easy form of gardening to any level-- from a glass of water or a single pot of soil, to planting in a large garden bed. So fear not, even if you’re living in a small studio apartment, you can try gardening with your kitchen scraps too!

We picked out the most common plants you’ll have in your kitchen to create this beginner’s guide! Hopefully, we can inspire you to plant your own easy zero-waste garden. With all the beautiful sunlight, spring is the perfect time of year to start this project. You’ll also need a good pot of soil to keep your plants growing happy. So when you are ready to pot, don’t forget to mix in a tablespoon of Clean Water GrowⓇ All-Purpose Plant Food to your soil, for a healthy and sustainable garden.

Green Onions

Green onions are the simplest plant to regrow, and they also have the quickest results. After you're done chopping down the stalks, throw the bulb (the white bit at the end of the stalk) into a glass of water. Leave the remaining bit of green above the waterline. Depending on how far you chopped down, your green onions could start growing back in as quickly as just a day. You can continue to use these onions and then set them back in the water for more to grow. Make sure you’re changing the water daily, otherwise you’ll get a slimy residue. But you can always feed the slimy water to your other houseplants, they’ll like it just the same and it will help prevent water waste. Soon the roots of your green onions will grow nice and long, once they reach about 2-4 inches you can pot them in soil. You can try this same process with leeks!

Potatoes

How many times have you forgotten about a potato or two in the back of the cupboard and it began to sprout? This time, you don’t have to feel bad about letting it go to waste. Instead of throwing it away, chop the potato in chunks, each chunk should have at least one growing sprout. Dig a few inches deep in a pot of soil or garden bed, set your potato chunk in the hole with the sprout facing up, and then cover with dirt. While potatoes are rather hearty and easy to grow, they will take some time until they can be harvested. You can dig them up for baby potatoes as soon as the vine finishes blooming, or wait until just before the first frost for more mature potatoes.

Carrot Greens

You can’t regrow a carrot, but you can grow carrot greens! You may not know, but carrot greens are a wonderful addition to recipes including, pesto, salad, or chimichurri. Next time you chop up your carrot, keep its top. Set the tops in a shallow plate of water and soon the greens will begin to grow. Once the leaves have grown a few inches, you can transfer the plant to a pot or bed of soil. Burry the carrot just under the soil with the greens sprouting up. When you’re ready, harvest the greens and try out a fun new recipe!

Romaine Lettuce

When chopping up your lettuce, make sure to keep about two inches of its core. Place it in a shallow bowl or jar of water, so the top sits just above the waterline. Use a few toothpicks to prop up the bottom of the lettuce so water has room to circulate underneath. Change the water occasionally. Leaves will quickly begin to sprout in a few days to a week. Once the leaves have grown fuller, it will be ready to transfer to soil. Plant it so the leaves remain above the dirt. You can also use this same process for celery stalks!

Onion

If your onion has already started sprouting on its own, you’re in luck-- well in terms of gardening, unfortunately, you probably won’t want to eat that onion. Carefully cut the onion lengthwise, making sure you don’t cut through the root. Pull off the onion layers so you are just left with a bulb and roots still attached. Place the bulb in water and once it grows roots, transfer to a pot. At the end of the season your onion will be ready to harvest!

If your onion has not already started sprouting, you can still regrow an onion from a fresh one. Chop off the bottom of the onion so there’s about 1-2 inches attached to the root. Let the base dry out for a few hours or up to a few days. Then create a starter pot. Press the base of the onion about an inch down into the pot of soil. Once it’s grown healthy roots and leaves you can transfer it to a garden. Often, more than one plant will grow from a single onion base. If this is the case, make sure to separate any attached roots before planting.

Garlic Greens

You can never have enough garlic around, right? If you can spare a clove, place it in a shallow pool of water with the root end faced down. Shoots will begin growing within a few days. These greens have a milder taste to garlic and can be cooked or thrown in as a garnish in your pasta or salad. Growing an entire head of garlic takes a little more skill, but the tasty greens that just a single clove will produce in a matter of days are still a treat!

There are so many more fruits and vegetables you can grow from your scraps-- avocados from pits, a pineapple from its head, red bell peppers from their seeds, or even your favorite mushrooms from their stems! Herbs are also very easy to regrow. You can find out how to propagate herbs to create your very own herb garden in our last blog post.

Have fun experimenting with your new garden! If things don’t work out, there will always be more kitchen scraps for you to try again.

Hopefully, we’ve inspired some new growth in your garden! We always love hearing about how your gardens are growing, so if you try out any of these fun projects and use one of the Clean Water GrowⓇ blends for your plant, tag us in your pictures on Facebook and Instagram with #grownwithGROW.

How to Create a Zero-Waste Garden with your Kitchen Scraps