Grow great greens and vegetables from trimmed ends & scraps of organic veggies instead of putting them in the compost or giving them to the chickens, even though both of these options are good and valiant alternatives to throwing the food in the trash 🙂
You will harvest some lovely young greens from what was going to be tossed, resulting in great nutrition right from your yard or patio.
(Be sure to start with organic veggies for the healthiest food.)
How to do this:
Save the stalk root ends of greens & other produce such as lettuces, chard, turnips, carrots and spinach. After using the edible parts, cut a bit off of the root end (where it was cut for harvest) and plant!
You can also give these soon-to-be food producers a head start by putting them in a bit of water for a few days.
See this post to learn how to give them this growing boost.
Which Veggies Are Best for This?
- Carrots with the green tops still attached – Cut the top part of the carrot just below where the greens are attached, leaving about 3 inches of the green stalks. Eat the carrot and plant the top!
- Turnips – Same as carrots. Turnip greens are mildly flavored with a slight green taste and chock full of antioxidants and other nutrients. And you would have missed these if you’d tossed the top end of the turnip!
- Lettuce – Romaine and Boston (butter) lettuce heads work very well. Remove the lettuce leaves from the stalk, leaving the stalk intact. Allow a few of the small inner leaves to remain on the stem, then plant.
- Leeks and Green Onions – Cut approx. 1/2 – 3/4 of an inch off the root end of the stalk before you slice these up for use in a recipe. Plant the cut off section in soil or jump-start their rooting by standing them up root side down in a glass or jar with a bit of filtered water (see this post for the how-to steps.) Use the rest of the leek or green onion as called for in your recipe.
What Do You Gain By Doing This?
- You get one more round of food – think veggies with 2 lives! – before they become compost.
- Easily grow some of your own food without garden space: these cuttings grow successfully in containers.
- Watch and marvel at Nature in action; it’s a great activity for kiddos
- Save a few bucks
Enjoy the fun and healthy benefits of growing food from scraps.
Let me know in the Comments how it goes!
Pictured are young turnip greens growing in my container. These gorgeous – and delicious! – leaves are thriving from turnip tops that originally came from a local farm’s organic turnips. Yum!