Regrowing vegetables from kitchen scraps

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Yes, it does work. At least with some vegetables. Potatoes are the most prolific ones in that department and they seem to be able to grow from even the smallest parts left, for instance, in compost. That is how I end up with potatoes growing in many of the containers in which I grow other vegetables – I only garden in containers, at home, basically – where I never planted them. Even after two to three years in the composter those scraps are still viable.

Other vegetables, however, can (also) be grown from scraps in different ways. Though I have to add a caveat and that is that some will regrow and others won't and that of the same type even.

Celery: The bottoms of stalk celery often will regrow and will then keep producing new celery stalks. I have done it more than once but also managed to kill them more than once. How I killed them? I have no idea.

Cabbage: I have tried this successfully with the bottom of a shop-bought leaf cabbage (a savoy kind of cabbage) and while it took some while (a couple of weeks) it works to regrow new leaves in head formation though they will never set proper heads again, and even multiple “heads” may appear.

Theoretically, more than likely, all cabbages will regrow from such scraps though I cannot entirely vouch for that not having tried and done it. Proper heads, however, even if it was a “head” cabbage will not form again. Or so the theory goes.

Spring Onion: Put the bottoms of those, the bulbs, for you really, theoretically and practically only use the green bits (just like large chives), into a pot and they will regrow. Keep cutting and using the green regrowth.

I have also been running a trial to regrow radishes, for the leaves though as they can be eaten, for new radishes will not happen, by having planted the tops in pots. A couple, unfortunately, died but while others did grow and that quite well. The leaves can be used in stews and such, though they also could be used in salads but they are quite peppery in taste.

Lettuces, of all different kinds, apparently, can also be regrown from the bottom bits but I have not, as yet, experimented in that department as I am not the greatest lettuce fan, even though being vegetarian.

Apparently there are also several others that can be regrown, such as turnips (from their bottoms), as well fennel (also from the base), as well as onions (from root base, though it more often than not does not work), garlic, and apparently even mushrooms can be regrown from the stalk. Will have to give that a try some day.

Maybe it is just a case of experimenting with what can be regrown from scraps (not seeds) – or from cuttings, such as in the case of basil. There may be more there than we are aware of. Most herbs can be regrown from cuttings, but then again those cuttings are not really kitchen scraps.

Then there are others that can be regrown from the seeds that we discard as scraps in the kitchen, such as bell peppers, and as well as others. Getting bell peppers to grow properly in the British or similar climes is not too easy though.

Come on, give it a try. I sure will try more.

© 2017

Now is the time to think about vegetable seeds

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Now is the time to think about which seeds to sow and plant in your vegetable garden for the year.

The choices are great but there are some varieties of vegetables that are best for all year round cropping and also don't forget the humble edible weeds. They grow better than anything else and are sure worth “cultivating” too.

This notion may seem silly to many a gardener but why battle with your weeds when you can eat them. (More later).

When it comes to the, if I may say so, ordinary vegetables to sew and plant, as said, there is a great variety out there but, alas, at times the choice is limited.

Let's look at beans: While there are many different kinds of beans that can be grown, including in the British Isles, all we seem to see if different “varieties” of runner (Lima), broad (Fava), and French beans, with a few other kinds. The rest of the great armory of beans that exist cannot be found with the great majority of seed companies in Britain.

Asking a representative of one of them one day I got the answer that there was no one interested. Really?

Also amazing is the fact that most people, including avid gardeners, have no idea that they can actually use the beans inside the runner beans after they have become stringy and can no longer be used in the way that they have become accustomed to. Those beans are the same as the dried Lima beans that are found in stores.

Other vegetables, as far as seeds and plants are concerned, also can be rather limited in Britain, and I mean here the kind that are commonly used elsewhere, including mainland Europe.

The same is true for, so at least I have found, potato varieties, but, then again, I do not, generally, buy seed potatoes and there is absolutely no need to do so. I know everyone – or almost everyone – keeps telling us that we must buy seed potatoes in order to grow healthy spuds. Really? I beg to differ here.

I have had nothing but problems with seed potatoes, especially with so-called blight resistant ones. Got a load of them from the Garden Press Event 2012 and they were the ones that, actually, the first ones that had the blight that year. The ones that I grew from cheapest Sainsbury's potatoes that had grown eyes were much more resistant. Sorry, but no more seed potatoes for me.

So, let's now look at what I mentioned before, namely the use of weeds for food. Many common garden, pardon the pun, weeds are edible and, in fact, are very good for us, and they are indeed legion.

Dandelion is one weed that, I am sure, everyone knows and regards as rather pesky. But not so. It is very edible indeed and great in salads or as spinach. I live the look on the faces of folks that ask me – being a professional gardener and forester – as to wht they are to do with the dandelion in their garden when I tell them to eat the stuff.

Another very useful weed is stinging nettle, Again it has many uses and should be used rather than wasted. Sorrel is another one which is, basically, a cut and come again spinach and I use it as it and don't just gather it in the wild, where it is mostly found, but have actually planted some of it in my garden.

Another very common weed in the garden that will take over if not checked but which is nutritious and good to eat is chickweed. And another one is Fat Hen, aka Lambs Quarter. The latter is, yet again, a most versatile one the leaves of which can be used as spinach, but also the stalk and the flower spikes can be eaten, the former steamed like asparagus and the latter like broccoli.

So think seeds and weeds for food in your garden and see how it can work out.

© 2013

Don't throw out your leaves!

Do-it-yourself leaf mold is great to improve your garden's soil

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Instead of raking the leaves in your yard and garden together, putting them into plastic bags and setting them on the curb to be picked up and added to a landfill, where most will end up via the municipal waste stream unless your council operates a green waste recycling scheme, turn them into leaf mold.

The dark, crumbly finished product of leaf mold is a great soil amendment and conditioner and if we are going to be dealing with droughts in our gardens in the future, which no doubt we will, increasing the moisture retention of our soils is important. Leaf mold is better still than wood chip mulch in this department as it improves the soil much better and quicker.

Finished leaf mold can be used as a mulch to suppress weeds and trap moisture, blended into the soil of garden beds, and added to container gardens and making leaf mold is, in fact, ridiculously easy. If composting seems too complicated and involved for you: give making your own leaf mold a try. All you need to create leaf mold is a space, leaves, water and time.

The easiest way of making leaf mold is to rake all of your leaves into a pile in the corner of your garden or yard. Once you’ve gathered the leaves into place, wet the pile down and keep it moist for the next six months to a year. If your leaf mold pile is at risk of being thrown about by kids, pets or the wind create pen to keep it in place.

Make a round or square frame out of chicken wire, reclaimed wood or similar to the DIY compost bins the designs of which you find all over the Internet. You can also put the leaves, ideally shredded, into black plastic bin liners, moisten them and then tie up the bags.

If you have a mulching mower you can speed up decomposition by riding over your leaf mold pile and shredding the leaves into smaller pieces.

A few years ago while watching one of those cable documentaries on the drug trade, I saw a cocaine farmer use a weed trimmer to shred cocoa leaves to process them faster. And you know what? It works! After you’ve corralled all of your leaves in place you can run a weed trimmer through the pile to break it down. Shredded leaves not only break down faster, but you have room for more leafs and taller piles.

All leaves you collect in autumn are good candidates for making leaf mold, though some are better than others when it comes to breaking down and decomposing. Smaller leaves, such as birch, alder and Japanese maples, can break down in as little as six months. Oak and hornbeam leaves similarly break down rather fast.

The bottom of your leaf mold pile can be ready to be mixed into your soil, used as a mulch, or mixed into your favorite container gardening soil mix in as little as half a year. Therefore, take some time this season to rake up your leaves – and those of your neighbors – to improve the soil in your garden. You will be keeping valuable organic matter out of landfills and preventing your neighbors from making burn piles this autumn.

The leaves have sequestered carbon over the year and this carbon is released into your soil when added to it and will feed your plants. So thus you should not waste it.

If you grow your own – vegetables that is – in the way that I do in “containers” of various sorts you can use the so-called lasagne gardening method and, in fact, add the leaf mold after six month to the bottom of the container and spread a thin, about four or five inches or so, layer of soil and compost above in which you sow your seeds or plant your plugs.

Waste not want not is the old adage and it applies also to those autumn leaves.

© 2012

Grow your own small vegetable garden

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Even the smallest space can produce plenty of vegetables, and this has been shown by several “studies”, for lack of a better words, such as the square foot gardening idea of the RHS in Britain. It works.

But in order to work the way they did it feeding an family of four from a very, very small space of raised beds, you have to have a way of groping plants on as plugs, ideally, bar those that cannot and should not be done that way. You cannot, period, grow carrot plugs. They do not work.

The advantages of growing your own vegetables are written about on a regular basis and some authors, no doubt correctly, have pointed out that not only do people waste less food by being able to go pick fresh vegetables when they need them, but the cost of having a small garden compared to buying fresh produce from the grocery store can save us a lot on food.

To make a statement, however, saying that a tomato plant can be worth $50 and then backing it up with a comparison that says that if you harvest 30 pounds at $2 per pound, that plant is worth $60 and when the plant costs only $2.90 to buy the plant, a few cents for water and 15 cents for the fertilizer, then that would make it at least $50 worth. I would like to see a tomato plants that will produce that amount in weight in fruit. Yes, tomatoes are fruit not vegetables. I have yet to get more than a couple of kilograms from a single tomato plant. So, such a comparison does not add up, except when grown either in an area where they can produce well or in the greenhouse and then other costs have to be factored in.

Plastic Tub Gardening

There are a number of “ready-made”solutions on the market, such as Earth Box and I do like the idea, but the price tag (almost $50 a piece) is a definite turn off, and not just to me. I should assume than many poorer families have looked at the ready-made solutions and decided that small space backyard gardening is not for them because of the cost.

However, you can make your own Earth Boxes out of Tupperware containers for about $12 a piece, and if you use other materials and sources too for even less.

Do you have to go out and buy stuff? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends what you can make and what you can scrounge and what you can find thrown away.

First of all, some vegetable do not need much in the way of depth of soil. Lettuces do best with little soil depth and thus they can be grown in shallow containers such as old washing up bowls, whether round or sort of square or rectangular or other containers.

Another great way of making rather deep raised beds, without using boards or anything like that, is using so-called builder bags, which are large woven polypropylene sacks in which sand, etc., is delivered to building sites and especially to the home builders. In this country they now are no longer returnable – they once were – and will end up in the skip outside the site and are destined for the landfill.

Fold their sides down to about half – you don't need more soil depth than that for growing vegetables and fill with earth. They make great planters, can be had for nothing or next to nothing from out of the skips and can, if need, rolled or folded up when you don't need them anymore or when you move.

In addition to all manner of vegetables – only chose, for starters those that you definitely like and those that are, according to books like “Down to Earth” are easy enough to grow – you can also grow herbs for use in the kitchen and in medicine.

Space is not an issue

The do-it-yourself Earth-type boxes are perfect for roof-top gardening 9just ensure that your roof can handle whatever amount of soil and remember that wet soil is several times heavier than dry soil), apartment balconies, small courtyards or a yard without a lot of sun. Another benefit is that when the growing season ends, it can all be taken down and stored until next year.

In all cases, ensure how much weight you roof or balcony can take. There is, obviously, not problem like that with courtyards, backyards with hard standing only, patios, and such like.

In fact, by using containers, and there are many kinds that can be used, just let your imagination go wild, there is nigh on no place where you cannot grow some food.

You like to grow some flowers too, for color and such. No problem. Just plant veg in with the flowers or vice versa and some benefits can be had by planting some flowers with some veg. It's called “companion planting” and some flowers are most beneficial when planted with vegetables.

So, go on, start a vegetable garden.

© 2011

Volunteer Vegetables

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Some of my readers may understand the meaning of the headline while others may not. Therefore, allow me to explain what I understand under volunteer vegetables, or volunteer plants in general.

A volunteer is a plant, whether vegetable or other, and we are not talking of weeds though a volunteer can be seen as a weed in some contexts as it is indeed a plant in the “wrong” place, a place you did not intend it to grow, is one that just springs up where you did not plant it and never even came close to the place with one.

This year the containers in my garden – I do most of my vegetable growing, and gardening per se, in containers with some raised beds – have had lots of potatoes spring up what I had never set there.

There must have been viable sprouts of them dormant in the compost – this is compost that I produce from kitchen scraps and such – and they, as far as the foliage goes, are enormous.

I know they say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and thus the jury is still out as to whether the result of the plants are many good potatoes but ... it sure looks good.

The photo shows the way one – or several – plants have sprung up in an old bathtub that was – originally – supposed to be planted with courgettes.

As said, there must have been some viable sprouts from potatoes from a year or more ago that were in the compost and thus have now turned into potato plants. We shall soon see what they have to show for their loads of leaves. I sure hope that there will be a good crop beneath them and hope that I am not going to be disappointed. I shall let you know when the first plant has been harvested, for they are not just in the bathtub.

Two huge potato plants are growing in large tubs that were used to hold the compost that has been taken out of the composters and I thus ran out of home-produced compost to add to planters.

In another tub there is a large lettuce plant that arrived just like that – probably by feathered carrier. I never have grown that type even before and thus it cannot come from my compost.

If the result of that lettuce, an Italian kind with curly leaves, is anything to go by then I hope for many more volunteer plants – as long as they are not weeds, with the exception of dandelion, as I use them as lettuce – in years to come.

So, learn to distinguish weeds from volunteers and also learn to distinguish edible weeds that you may like to keep and cultivate from those that are not beneficial.

Now let's hear it for the volunteers...

© 2010