Store-bought Vegetable Scraps you can easily Regrow!

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Whether you have the extra yard space or have limited space if you’re renting an apartment, growing your own vegetables at home is possible. Save money and time on grocery trips by using old produce scraps as plant starters for growing your own food at home. Fresh organic food is notoriously expensive in groceries so why not grow your own for cheap? Check out these healthy foods that you can easily regrow from scraps!

Bean Sprouts

One of many primary schools student experiments is learning the process of germination by sprouting a bean in a jar. It’s easy enough that kids can do it! Sprouting your own beans takes a little as a week. Beans you can sprout easily include lentils, red beans and mung beans. These fresh greens have a variety such as ingredients for your sandwiches, salads or stir-frys, adding healthy crunchy to your favourite meals. To sprout your bean, first, soak 1/2 cup in cold water in a clean glass container overnight. Ensure that the jar is cover with two layers of napkins secured with a rubber band. Store you jar in an area near a window to get some sunlight during the day. Leave the jar overnight and the next morning, drain and rinse the beans and re-secure the napkin with a rubber band. Repeat the process for 4-7 days till you notice sprouts stemming out. Sprouts are ready to eat when they are at least three inches long but can be left to grow longer.

Chives

Chives are one of the easiest plants to grow in your garden. The next time you purchase chives, save those valuable white roots you chop off the ends of chives, plant them to re-grow yourself an endless supply of chives. Chives provide a light aromatic onion flavour to dishes and is a core ingredient to many cuisines across the Caribbean to season meat and seafood and as a base for green herb blends. All it takes to successfully grow chives at home is soil, sunlight, water and a container to grow the chives. In a rectangular container or gardening pot, lay down at least 3 inches of soil and moisten with water as chives need to stay constantly hydrated in order to grow. Next step, you can place your chives roots (which must be at least 1-inch tall) into the soil, spacing each root about 1 inch apart. Water your chives once daily and watch them grow up to 12 inches tall! You can’t plant your chives in soil, some people place the roots directly in water and still manage to re-grow these persistent plants.

Tomatoes

Warm-loving plants, tomatoes are easy to grow and simple to harvest to be used right away in the kitchen. Stews, salads and chokas are just a few out of endless ways we consume juicy tomatoes. Whilst dicing up your tomatoes, easily core out those slimy seeds and sprinkle over moist soil in a small container or cup. In a week’s time, tiny tomato seedlings will begin to germinate once the soil is receiving adequate sunlight and moisture. Once these conditions are maintained, tomato plants can grow to over a meter in height, you may need to prop up the plant on a tall wooden stake for additional support. Tomatoes have a high water composition so utilize a well-draining soil and water daily and in the dry season, you will need to provide extra water. Over the next 2 weeks, tomato plants will begin to flower and will slowly emerge with green tomato buds. These green buds will begin to increase in size and ripen to a bright red, indicating they’re ready for picking!

Pimentos

Pimentos are amazingly handy as they add subtle spice and zing to savoury dishes. Similarly to tomatoes, the next time you are slicing up your pimentos, save the seeds and sprinkle them over some soil or dig a shallow hole and bury them. Keep watering the soil on a daily basis and within two weeks, you can hope to see tiny pimento sprouts pop up. Transplant your pimento seedlings to the ground or plant pot for it to grow into a larger plant. As soon as you plant yields handfuls of pimentos at a time, continue the cycle of saving seeds and regrowing more pimento plants.