Food Waste Friday: Regrowing Food

by Jamie Simpher, KC Can Compost Volunteer

How to turn scraps into new food

Did you know that a lot of vegetables will magically regrow if you put your scraps in water?

Here are a few examples:

Green Onions: Save the white onion bulb and any roots, and place them in a glass of water and watch them spring up within a week!

Leeks: Save two to three inches of the bottom of the stalk in a cup of water. New growth will come from the center of the plant.

Lettuce: You don’t eat the bottom of your head of lettuce anyway; keep it and place it in a bowl of water. Within 2 weeks, you’ll have half a head! This works best with romaine.

Basil: If you have a sprig of basil with a few leaves attached, trim of the end of the stem and place it in a jar of water to generate roots.

Garlic: Bury a clove (or a whole head of garlic) and harvest when it turns yellow.

Potatoes: Oops; it started to sprout. That means you can’t eat it. But you can cut it up into chunks and plant it to grow new potatoes!

Rosemary: Cut a three-inch spring from a mature plant, strip the leaves off the bottom half, and planet that end in soil. The cuttings like moisture and indirect light.

Ginger: This one might be the easiest of all; just plant a piece of ginger and wait for it to sprout! Small pieces of the root can be harvested as needed. Just recover it every time you use some, and it will keep producing as long as you take care of it.

Regrowing your food helps prevent food waste, saves you money, and it’s fun and means you have tons of beautiful greenery around your house.