Vegetable Scrap Garden
Home and Garden Show 2020 Presentation
Home and Garden Show 2020 Presentation
The following information is being presented to you as a virtual Home and Garden Show by the Lea County Extension Service. The Lea County Master Gardeners and the Lea County Family and Consumer Science Agent have put together several informative programs along with videos for you to enjoy!
This information on Vegetable Scrap Gardens is presented by Lea County Master Gardener, Bonnie Saucedo. Bonnie offers these tips for adding these "scraps" into you own garden.
Vegetable scrap gardens are a fun and exciting way to regrow items that were destined for the garbage bin. Here is just a small list of scraps you can regrow:
Green onions Lemongrass Leeks Fennel
Celery Cabbage Bok choy Ginger
Carrots Beets Cilantro Parsley
Pineapple Romaine Lettuce Purple onion
Garlic
Garlic
Below are steps you can take to regrow three of your own vegetable scraps:
Celery
To regrow celery, cut celery stalks about 2 inches off the root end of a bunch of celery. Place the bottom of the celery in a shallow glass bowl or jar. Fill with just enough water to submerge an inch of the root end, and place the bowl or jar in a place where it can get good sunlight for at least 4 hours a day. Change the water ever few days, and make sure the root end is always submerged. If necessary, you can use toothpicks around the side of the bowl to keep the celery root from touching the bottom of the bowl or jar. 
In a few days you will start to see small leaves emerging from the center of the celery root. In about a week small stalks and leaves will start emerging, and you will start to see the roots coming in around the base of the celery root.
When the roots are about an inch long, you can place the whole thing into potting soil or into your garden. Celery thrives in cool rich soil, so give it lots of shade and feed it with a fertilizer that is suitable for vegetables
Cilantro
To regrow cilantro, talk a piece of cilantro, and cut at the base, leaving about 3 inches from the top. Remove all but the top leaves. Put your cutting into a glass jar, and place in a sunny location. In about 3 days, you will see tiny roots emerge. Once your roots are about an inch long, you can transfer them into potting mix or your garden. Cilantro grows best in cool soil. When temperatures increase, the plant will begin to bolt so plant in the early spring and late fall for best results.
Garlic
There are some amazing pictures of regrowing garlic from bulbs from the store. I tried the water bottle method, and had success. Here’s how to regrow garlic.
Cut the top portion of a water bottle off, leaving the plastic cylinder part. Fill the cut bottle with water. Drop the intact garlic bulb into the bottle. Just the bottom of the bulb should be submerged in the water, the rest should sit on ‘top’ of the bottle. Place the bottle in a location that will get indirect light – be sure to avoid direct sunlight. Maintain the water level and change out the water weekly. In two to three weeks you should see good root growth and lots of shoots. At this point, gently break apart the cloves and place them into potting soil or into your garden. Garlic is a cold weather plant, so plan to grow and plant them in October/November.
Green Onions
Green onions are so easy to grow. Cut the green onion about one inch from the bottom. Place your cuttings in a glass jar, and place in a sunny location. In about a week you will see inch long roots and green stalks coming from the top. Transfer the cuttings to a pot or directly into your garden. Here are my cuttings after a few weeks of being in the garden.
We hope you enjoy the "Fruits of our Labor". If you have Home or Garden Questions, or would like more information on Lea County Extension Programs please feel free to contact the Lea County Extension Service Staff at:
Family & Consumer Science Agent--Robin Haynes rmack@nmsu.edu
4-H/Youth Development--Kayla Hinrichs kdawn07@nmsu.edu
4-H/Youth Development--Kayla Hinrichs kdawn07@nmsu.edu
