Regrow Your Vegetables from Scraps in a Glass of Water

I love all kinds of DIY projects. So when I read about regrowing certain vegetables in a glass of water, I was in.  I think that this is a form of hydroculture, but it is different from hydroponics where plants are grown in mineral nutrient solutions in water.

What I’ve been doing is taking vegetables that come with some roots or could grow roots onto its stem, and putting them in a glass of water.

I started with what was left of a head of celery that was almost used up. It didn’t have roots, but the bottom that held the stalks together could regrow roots. I put the scrap of the head of celery in a small drinking glass with a little tap water (about an inch or less of water) to cover the bottom where the roots would grow. The celery started growing within a couple of days.

In less than a week, it had three new stalks growing up from the old bottom. As the days pass, they are continuing to grow.

I am so curious to see if it will grow big enough that I will have to put it in a bigger glass. So far, it’s been growing in water for less than 2 weeks, and it’s making good progress. It is now growing roots!

At the end of last week, I decided to try to regrow scallions, too. Because I needed to use most of the scallions for a recipe, I cut them pretty close to the bottom of the bulb near the roots. It would have been easier to keep them upright in the glass if I had left more of the scallion on. But in terms of growth, it hasn’t mattered a bit that it’s growing from a small scrap. Within a few days, new scallions have started to grow from the cut areas of the original scallions. And the roots are growing longer and more plentiful too.

The water in the glass needs to be changed about every three days, otherwise the water gets cloudy and slimy. Jeff says I should put in some plant food, but for now, I think I’ll stick with plain water. But after a couple of more weeks, I may add some water containing a few drops of liquid fertilizer.

To be honest, I don’t really expect that I will be able to grow full-grown vegetables in glasses of water in my kitchen, but I think it will give me enough of something that I’ll be able to use what I have, say in a recipe, rather than have to run to the store, something I am trying hard to avoid.

In addition to celery and scallions/green onions, here is a list of some other vegetables you can grow from scraps in water :

• leeks
• fennel
• kohlrabi
• bok choy
• lettuce
• arugula
• watercress

Anything that comes with roots attached is a good candidate. But others can be regrown, like my celery, as long as you have the bottom portion of the plant. A bottom scrap from a head of lettuce will also grow new leaves. I think romaine lettuce that has a bottom similar to celery, or a hydroponic Boston lettuce that comes with the roots attached may be my next project. The new vegetable grows up through the center of most of the plants, like my scallions pictured above.

For those of you who like to use the leaves from a bunch of vegetables in stews or cooked on their own, you can grow replacements of the leaves from these veggies:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Parsnips
• Radishes
• Rutabagas
• Turnips.

Just cut off the top of the vegetable, and put it in water and it will regrow the leaves.

I used to have a vegetable garden, but my former next door neighbors built a 6 foot stockade fence right next to my garden and, to add insult to injury, they planted three birch trees next to the fence that have grown up over my yard and garden. Ugh.

So now I am trying to grow vegetables from scraps indoors in a little water, and it’s fun! Would this be something you might try?

Today's Author

Allison Cohen

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