Grow veggies from leftovers

Seeds from store bought acorn squash

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Granny always said to save the seeds from the best vegetable your plant grew.  You can apply this same principle to the veggies you buy from the store or farmers market.

You can grow any vegetable or fruit from its seed.  It is easy to save seeds from store bought fruit and vegetables.  Great candidates are any heirloom peppers, eggplants, zucchini, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, apples, peaches, cucumbers, avocados and many more.  

Best chance for success is with organic as they have been treated with least toxic chemicals, are sure to be GMO free, and will not have been irradiated which basically kills the seed.

I have successfully grown peppers, tomatoes, oranges, sweet potatoes, onions, squash and avocados from seeds from organic produce I bought at the grocery store.  

The best success I have had with avocados is to use seeds from overly ripe avocados.  Remove the seed and look to see if there is a root starting to form on the flat side of the seed.  When I find these, I just place in a pot that I keep moist until it sprouts.  I have also sprouted them in water and then planted in a pot.  Then I back off the watering and let dry in between.  

You can also use the pieces and parts of other vegetables to grow new ones.  Onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, celery, heads of lettuce, garlic are all great candidates for this approach.  

*Cut off the bottom of onions and celery and replant them.  

*Save the “heart” or stem portion of lettuce to replant.  

*Breaking your garlic into cloves and planting them can work.  

*Same with the eyes of potatoes and sweet potatoes.  Choose the eye that is already sprouting.

*Replant or place in water the top portion of carrots.  The carrot top greens are great for salads.

*Any rhizomes (roots) will also grow when planted like ginger and horseradish.

Some veggies are treated with chemicals to prevent sprouting on the shelf so this approach may not work for all, but it is worth a try!  The will for propagation is very strong in nature.

If you do potatoes, plant them in a potato planting bag to be sure that you don’t accidentally transmit potato diseases into your soil.  The starters you buy from garden centers are certified to be disease free.

It doesn’t cost a thing to try!