Save money by re-growing food

You know how expensive grocery shopping has become.  Wouldn’t it be great to have fresh fruits and veggies that you grow yourself at home?

Well, you can. Here’s how to save money by re-growing food!

There are many fruits, veggies, and herbs you can re-grow from scraps, so you really only have to buy it once and then reuse it.  How awesome is that – recycled food!

Ready to save money by re-growing food? Great! Here we go!

For this post, I started onions, carrots, green peppers, celery, and romaine lettuce.

But, I also found this great article on other foods you can regrow as well.

Save money by re-growing food: Onions.

This was the easiest of all because it was the last one in my bag of onions and had already sprouted in the bag.  I just chopped it in half and plopped it in my garden and it is growing nicely.

Save money by re-growing food: Green Peppers.

We have done this for years, and very, very rarely have to buy green peppers.  When I have a ripe pepper, I save the inside piece with all the seeds attached (I’m sure there is a fancy scientific name for that, but you know what I mean).

I get a small pot of dirt ready and rub the seeds off the stem with my finger onto the soil.  I sprinkle a little bit more soil on top of the seeds, keep them watered, and they will soon sprout.

I then plant them either in a bigger container or out in my garden.  One year, I was too busy to pick one of the ripe ones in my garden and when the pepper dropped off, the seeds germinated by themselves! So they really are easy to grow. Click here to see how to freeze green peppers for recipes. 

 Save money by re-growing food: Celery.

I don’t know about you, but I never seem to be able to use a whole bag of celery before it starts wilting or turning yellow. I usually need a chopped cup or two for a recipe and then it just sits, except we do give our guinea pig, Larry, all of the tiny middle stems and the leaves, which he LOVES.

So, I was excited to learn you can re-grow celery. I chopped off the celery about 3-4 inches from the bottom and put that it a bowl of water.  New stems started growing right out of the middle in just a few days.  It was in the bowl of water for just over a week, and then it had plenty of roots, and it is now planted and growing well.  What a great find!

Save money by re-growing food: Romaine lettuce.

Just like my celery, there are times we don’t finish all the romaine, not even Larry.

At my local grocery, they come packaged with 3 heads in 1 bag, so I was excited to find you can regrow romaine just like celery. Just chop off the bottom 4 inches, put it in water and it will immediately start growing new leaves.  I mean, I could see new leaves sprouting out of the top the next day! It was pretty amazing.

I let it stay in the water for about a week until it had good roots and lots of leaves on top, and then I planted it in my garden.  And then for the next few days I was busy and didn’t have time to check on it.  When I did get out to the garden, the slugs had devoured all but a tiny little part of my lettuce 🙁  So that is why I don’t have a picture of how fast it grew. Darn slugs…

Save money by re-growing food: Carrots

Yes, we go through a lot of carrots at my house.  That Larry, again…

Now, I will be honest. I actually prefer the pre-cut baby carrots to take with my lunch every day, but I do find that when I am using carrots for salad or a recipe (especially in the crock pot, where the baby carrots turn to mush) I prefer the big ‘ol Bugs Bunny kind of carrots. And these are what I used to re-grow new ones.

Cut the carrot about an inch from the bottom.  Put it cut side down in a shallow bowl of water and soon the leaves will sprout.  Leave them in the water until roots start forming on the sides and then plant them in soil.  That’s it.  So easy. I just planted my new carrot starts about a week ago, so it will be a while before we get any new carrots, but it is nice to know we will eventually.

Other plants I have re-grown (Avocado, pineapple, basil and chives).

Avocado.

We  have an avocado tree that, after a year, is now 5 feet tall. All we did is poke 3 toothpicks into the middle of the seed and then balanced the toothpicks sticking out of the seed on top of a small glass of water until it sprouted.  Once it had good roots and some growth on the top, we planted it in a pot, and it’s still growing happily in it.

Pineapples.

With pineapples, you simply cut off the top and plant it.  Our plant did fabulously for about 3 years.  It is a pretty plant, but we never got any pineapples from it. I have heard from others that it does take a while for them to mature, but once they do, they continue making new pineapples regularly. Unfortunately, we had a very wet season and it succumbed to too much water and died, but we did have it for several years.

Basil and chives.

I have also successfully re-grown chives and basil in the past with the same concept. They will root in water and then once you have roots, you simply plant it in a pot. Easy peasy.

Here’s my herb pot right now. I have chives, basil, parsley, and catnip growing. It’s easy to have these perpetually on hand by adding new starts.

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Larry, the Guinea pig.

Since I have mentioned Larry several times in this post, I thought I’d include a picture of him. Maybe I’m biased, but we think he’s such a cute piggie.

So, get ready to save money on your grocery bill and have fun planting!

~ Pam