5 Vegetables You Can Regrow in Your Garden

Our garden planning is coming along nicely, but, with the spring snowfall, we won’t be able to start planting for another month or so. But that time gives us an opportunity to explore all of our planting options. We’re trying to stick to a budget, so what we’re looking at this week are vegetables we can grow from our kitchen scraps — and there are a lot! Here are 5 vegetables you can regrow in your garden.

Garlic You need it for everything! In your salads, pizza, pasta, sauce — just about every type of culinary challenge requires garlic. Planting a clove or two is a sensible money-saving project. Garlic can be planted in the fall or spring, but if you’re planting in the spring, put it in the ground as soon as the soil is warm and soft enough to be worked. They’re easy to plant — one clove produces a bulb and each clove should be planted about 2” down with plenty of organic matter mixed in with the soil. The only thing you need to be really careful of is drainage — too much water will cause rot.

Onions Just like garlic, you can never have too many onions — and they taste so much sweeter when they’re free! They’re pretty easy to grow — when you’ve cut up an onion, save the root part that you usually toss. It should be a little bit dry (calloused) before you plant it. When it’s ready, bury it in a sunny spot in your garden under an inch or two of soil and let it sprout.

Potatoes Potatoes are a staple in just about any culture. It’s a hardy vegetable that is eaten year-round, so you’ll be doing your meals and your wallet a favor by planting a few in your garden. When you see a potato sprouting eyes, it’s ready to grow. Cut the potato up and let it dry out for a day or two (like onions) before you put it in the ground. Holes should be about 6” deep and the pieces of potatoes should be planted with the eyes (sprouts) facing up. They love lots of sun and require a good amount of water to produce healthy spuds.

Romaine When we eat in the summer, we eat salad alongside our grilled meats — and growing the lettuce in the backyard is a great way to cut costs at the grocery store! Romaine is not only easy to re-grow, but it’s also the most nutritious type of lettuce. Saving your stumps is a win-win-win!  To get it going, let the stump soak in about a half-inch of water that you should change frequently (every 1 to 2 days). Put it in a sunny spot and in just a few days you’ll start seeing growth. You can keep growing it just like this, but it’s better grown in soil and you can transplant it in your garden after a week.

Basil Right now is the perfect time to start basil cuttings indoors to transplant in your garden. When you have your package of basil, make sure there are leaf nodes (they look like branches will sprout from them). With kitchen shears, cut just below the node and remove any leaves from the bottom two inches. Stick this in a clear glass of water and put it in a sunny window. Make sure to change the water every other day and it should be ready to plant in soil in about four weeks.

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