May 14, 2020July 23, 2020

It’s all the rage – growing your food waste to eat it again. There is a remarkable joy in making something from nothing. For this activity, you will have everything you need at home to watch these plants grow.

ACTIVITY INSTRUCTIONS

EQUIPMENT

A jar or cup
Water
Vegetable Scraps
- Start with veggie scraps that only need water to grow like: bok choi, romaine, butterleaf, garlic cloves and spring onions

INSTRUCTIONS

Leafy Vegetables

Step 1: Cut the green leafy tops off to eat

Save about 4 – 6 cm of the bottom part of the plant.
We recommend using leafy vegetables like Bok choy, romaine, butterleaf.

Step 2: Put some water in a small jar or container

Step 3: Add the plant bottom to the water root-side down

Step 4: Watch it grow

Put it by a windowsill where it will see some sunshine and watch it grow.
After 10 days on a windowsill, this is what grew back.You might see even more growth than this as we do not get a lot of sun. The butterhead lettuce in the back is the kind you get from the store that comes in a small plug of soil and that grew the most quickly, continually. Can you tell which one is romaine and which is bok choy?

Green Onions & Scallions

Green onions are the Project CHEF favorites for re-growing. Many young chefs have brought a green onion nub home to regrow from our school programs. We have found many left in apron pockets too. Below is what you may see after one week of re-growing green onions. They taste great too.

Step 1: Make Your Cut

Cut off the white part from the green onions, about 3 – 4cm above the roots.

Step 2: Add the onion roots to a jar with water

Change the water daily if you remember.

As a gardener, garlic and green onions were the most satisfying to regrow. For comparison, the scallions below were planted from seed 5 weeks ago. People plant onions from seed in January to harvest in late summer and store over winter. Therefore, it takes a long time!

Garlic

This garlic clove grew roots and a shoot. You could plant this in soil and grow green garlic through the summer. If you haven’t tried garlic greens before, taste it. They are great in fried rice, frittata or any recipe where garlic is used. Put them in at the end of cooking, like fresh herbs, instead of at the beginning. Note: You need the whole clove; a garlic clove cut in half will not regrow.