Hold the phone. I just found out you can regrow food in water without dirt. Could gardening get any better when you have two black thumbs?
I think not. And my black thumbs aren’t the only reason I’ve been hesitant to garden. It can be costly too, but ever since I found ways to water my garden for free, I’m all over it.
Then my step-mom showed me how to regrow food in water – she had a couple heads of lettuce in a bowl in her kitchen. But as it turns out, it’s just one of several veggies that can grow without dirt, and without much effort too.
It’s great news for those buying organic vegetables, but even if you aren’t, it’s a simple way to stretch those grocery dollars just a teeny bit further is to regrow food in water!
Why Should You Regrow Food in Water?
There are plenty of reasons to regrow food, but the most important ones to me are:
(1) It’s absolutely free.
You already bought the vegetable. All it costs is a few tablespoons of water – but if you’re smart about it, you can re-use water you’ve already used elsewhere, like from boiling pasta or water that you collected while waiting for the shower to get hot. Then it wouldn’t cost you a dime!
(2) It’ll trim your grocery budget.
Little ways to save money really do add up to bigger savings, as long as you’re diligent about using them.
Now, you won’t get a huge harvest out of any of these items, but it is still food and every little bit helps. Even if it’s a few leaves of lettuce to scoop your tuna salad with, you can regrow food you didn’t have before and won’t have to buy.
(3) It makes organics more affordable.
Affording organic food just got easier! If you start with organic food, you’ll regrow food that’s organic… so you’ll reap the benefits of organic greens without actually paying for them!
(4) It’s easy.
Do I have to explain further? I mean, stick the plant in water and watch it grow. Really – it’s that easy!
I’ve listed below all the vegetables that can legitimately grow in water and water alone.
Sure, there are plenty more that can START in water and then be transplanted to soil. And yes, beans will sprout in water too – but unless the vegetable will grow into more vegetable that can be eaten as-is with only a cup of water, I kept it off this list.
General Guidelines to Regrow Food in Water
- You don’t need a lot of water – just enough to cover the roots. About 1/2″ of water seems to be sufficient otherwise the food can get moldy and slimy.
- Be sure to check the water every 2-3 days to ensure that A) there’s enough water, and B) no rogue lettuce pieces fall off and slime up your bowl.
- The size of container should be relative to the size of the food you’re growing. Lettuce and celery grows best in shallow bowls like these. Green onion and lemongrass can be in taller, skinny glasses like these.
- You can regrow multiples of the same plant as long as you’re not overcrowding the area.
- I haven’t tried this myself, but using a fertilizer could help with the yield when you regrow food – especially if this is more than a fun side project. I would recommend this Dr. Earth organic liquid fertilizer or a hydroponic fertilizer.
10 Ways to Regrow Food in Water
Bok Choy
Cut off the bottom of the stalk and place in a small bowl of water. New growth begins from the center in 1-2 days with significant growth in less than a week!
Cabbage
Place the root end in a shallow bowl of water and watch it regrow from the center. Be sure to harvest on the smaller side to get the best flavor.
Carrot Greens
You can’t regrow an actual carrot, but you can regrow the carrot tops! Place the cut-off end of a carrot in a shallow bowl of water. Harvest the greens as they grow and add to salads. Better yet, make this amazing carrot top pesto and stop spending money on store-bought!
Celery
Cut off the bottom 2″ of the stalk and place in a small bowl of water. New growth begins from the center in 3-4 days. It might take awhile for a full stalk of celery to grow, but you’ll get great growth in the center for flavoring dishes. If you don’t know what to do with the leaves, dehydrate them, and make your own dried celery powder.
Fennel
Cut off the bottom 1″ of the base so that the roots are intact and place in a small bowl of water.
Garlic Chives
Garlic chives are the green that grows from a clove of garlic and can be added to dishes that traditionally call for green onion chives like salads and baked potatoes. Place a garlic clove in a small cup and add water to the bottom without submerging. Roots will grow in a few days and shoots will grow shortly after!
Tip: Garlic starts to lose it pungent flavor when the shoots grow, so if you find a rogue clove in your fridge or pantry starting to shoot, place it in a cup of water to grow chives instead of throwing the clove away!
Green Onion
Keep the white part of the onion with any roots that are in still intact. Place in a glass with water and you’ll have a never-ending supply of fresh green onion!
Leeks
Cut off the bottom 2-3″ of the stalk and place in a cup of water. New growth will come from the center of the plant. Usually only the green part of the leek is used in cooking, but it can be used interchangeably with onions for a delicious, mellow flavor.
Lemongrass
Cut off 2-3″ from the bottom and place in a tall container with 1/2″ or so of water. New lemongrass shoots will grow from the center.
Lettuce
Cut off the bottom of the head of lettuce and place it in a small bowl of water. New growth begins from the center of the in as little as 3 days and you’ll have a new half-head of lettuce in about 2 weeks. I’ve heard romaine re-grows best, but I’ve had success with green leaf and red leaf lettuce too.
Got more scraps to regrow food?
There are plenty more vegetables that will regrow using just a small scrap of the original food. These listed below can be started in water, but should be transplanted to dirt for full growth and harvest.
- avocado
- basil
- beets
- cilantro
- ginger
- lemon balm
- mint
- mushrooms
- onions (white/yellow/red)
- parsnips
- pineapple
- potatoes
- rosemary
- sweet potatoes
- turnips
And of course, you can save the seeds/pits from apples, cherries, lemons, nectarines, peaches, peppers (sweet and hot), plums, pumpkins and tomatoes to grow your own new vegetables!
We have several heads of lettuce regrowing on our kitchen table, which makes for a pretty and practical centerpiece! If you had a shelf near a window, you could keep all your plants there and just harvest when they’re big!
Just think – if we did all of the above ways to regrow food, we might not ever have to shop at the grocery store again!
It’s so easy to regrow food in water!
- You’ve worked hard to grow your garden or pinch pennies to afford organics or are doing the best you can with your budget — now it’s time to stretch those dollars even further and grow food in water!
- Start with one of these shallow dishes or these taller dishes. Add in the food stumps (see above for details!). And keep the water fresh.
- Fertilizer could help if you really want to work this system. This Dr. Earth organic liquid fertilizer or a hydroponic fertilizer would work well.
- If regrowing your food in water isn’t your skill set, use those kitchen scraps to make chicken stock!
Need ideas on how to preserve those extra vegetables?
How to Blanch Greens // DIY Celery Powder // How to Keep Fruit (and Vegetables) Fresh Longer
David
Great article! You can also grow these And many of those under the list “Got More Scraps” above where it says they then need to be transported to soil, with aquaponics. Aquaponics does Not use soil but is an eco-system where fish waste provides the nutrients (very simplified explanation). Not sure if I can post our site, so I won’t, but searching for the term aquaponics will give your readers lots of info. Thanks.
Debbie Rioux
Garlic is the easiest to grow. Just get one head and separate the cloves. Plant in November, put in point up about 3-4 inches deep in the dirt. Each clove will become one head of garlic! Harvest in summer when tops start dying off. Can be done in a pot, raised bed or ground. I got 50 heads last year needless to say I am sharing garlic with friends and family.
Randy B.
Wow wonderful article an great tips. Thanks as well for the free download.
Tiffany
Thank you Randy – and you’re welcome!
Amy
I’ve something like this for a few years, but I plant right inside rather than having thing start in water. I find that the cores of many things like lettuce and celery are all that are needed. I use a ton of green onions in my cooking and started with those. When putting in dirt you only need less than half an inch of the root end, just make sure that the top (the cut edge) stays above the dirt so it won’t rot. I find a few things tend to shoot straight into flowers and go to seed… Works for me, I now have tons of seeds to grow more things from. If you core a full sized onion rather than slicing off the root end (use a paring knife to cut a cone shape with the roots) you can plant that too, again leaving the top exposed so it won’t rot.
I have pots along my patio and hanging from my patio roof and will randomly run out and plant a few seeds out of something I’m eating. I have grown melons, green and jalapeno peppers, tomatillos and tomatoes this way. I currently have a strawberry patch starting from a few seeds I planted earlier… seeds I cut off the outside of a strawberry I ate. Planted a few pomegranate seeds as I way eating one and now have a couple of 3 foot trees that should start giving fruit in a year or two.
I once bought an Asian sweet potato from my local Asian market, simply to try it. It hung around for quite a while waiting for me to figure out what to do with it and began to sprout. I cut off a tiny bit of potato where the sprout was and planted it in a deeper planter. I now have a beautiful, huge, green plant (unfortunately a type of deadly nightshade and not edible itself) growing in a 1×4 planter. I have harvested several Asian sweet potatoes from the deep pot over the last few years and it just keeps growing more. This year I cut up a regular Idaho russet that got a bit big in the eyes… It too is growing wonderfully and although I haven’t harvested any yet, I assume that baby potatoes are quietly growing underneath.
Not all of them work out, more to the fact that I have no clue what I’m doing and live in a state where 115 degree summers are common (very hard to figure out how much to water). If something fails, no biggie, it cost me nothing. I don’t even get good soil. I buy the cheapest top/garden/potting soil I can find. My goals keep getting bigger… trying to start a peach tree from a pit as we speak. Glad you are spreading the word about this and hope that others out there are inspired, even if just a little.
cara
I’ve been enjoying watching the green onions grow since I found your post a couple of weeks ago. They’re tall enough to try now! I have celery and leaf lettuce to try growing, but still debating on containers. I’m thinking glass would be best, but other than jars there aren’t a lot of glass containers that can be sacrificed in our house. 🙂 Has anyone had success with metal mixing bowls? We have a coated set we don’t use that might not rust, but metal isn’t a good idea for a lot of things. And plastic seems like it could be iffy too.
Thanks!
Cara
Patricia
I heard about doing this from Mother Earth News magazine. I’ve already tried romaine lettuce and the eyes from sweet potatoes and it really works. I actually put my in soil not water but I am going to try your method too. It really works. This is great for those of us who are in a tight budget an love to experiment with food. I’d like to try garlic and onion. Thanks for all the comments and reply’s/ hints from people.
bottleponics
This is awesome. You can even create simple hydroponic systems with bottles.
Tiffany
Thanks for the tip!
Helen
A word of caution for growers, I used to have hydroponic house plants. The root systems for water plants are different that soil roots. The transition from one to the other (either direction) may be a shock to the plant. Monitor your transplants closely. Some may not like the switch from one to another so be prepared to switch them back to the original medium
I believe the rule of thumb is… it’s easier to go from soil to water than vice versa.
Tiffany
Thanks for the tip Helen!
Emma @ whatmakesgreat
Great post Tiffany. I’m already growing spring onions, but can’t wait to give all these other vegetables a go. Thanks for sharing.
Tiffany
Thanks Emma!
Charles McDermott
Has anyone tasted the results of what is grown? I successfully grew lettuce but it certainly wasn’t the same as the original product. If this is so simple how come it isn’t done by everyone?
Tiffany
We eat what we grow all the time. 🙂
Marina Qutab
Love this!! Sharing it on my blog. Thanks for the awesome advice. Keep it up.
Marina
Tiffany
Thanks Marina!
Krissy
I have been trying the lettuce and celery thing for months and they end up rotting put at the root. Any suggestions?
Shana Trahan
This! Every time. Any hints?
Tiffany
Shana and Krissy – I would try a cooler spot in the house, changing the water more frequently and using less water altogether to see if that helps!
Kayla
I’ve just started to regrow lettuce 4 days ago and there is already of bunch of growth! But as the new lettuce grows should to take off the old outer lettuce leaves or just keep them on?
Evelyn Mayfield
I absolutely MUST try this – thank you SO much! Can’t wait for the lettuce, green onions and celery, to start…clearing off a windowsill tomorrow…
Shreeram Shirodkar
I tried Lemon Grass first it starts with roots & new buds starts to appear from the sides 4 to 5 buds. Once they are 2 – 3 inches with tender leaves you can transfer them in a large 12″ x 12″ x 24″ pot with soil to form a good bush of lemongrass which has fibrous roots spreading all over inside the pot so each time of harvesting be sure to empty the entire pot of soil after stopping the watering 2 days ahead. Crumble the soil chop off excess roots divide the bunch remove the bigger ones for your kitchen & remembering to save the bottom portion for renewed plants as you started
Shreeram Shirodkar
Got more scraps?
There’s plenty more vegetables that will regrow using just a small scrap of the original food. These listed below can be started in water, but should be transplanted to dirt for full growth and harvest.
avocado basil beets cilantro ginger lemon balm mint mushrooms onions (white/yellow/red) parsnips pineapple potatoes rosemary sweet potatoes turnips.
Please give the way to grow mushrooms – I am eagerly waiting for this experience.
Karen
what part do you use on the beets and turnips?
Jim
Avocado regrows from “small scrap of food’? News flash: all plant food crops are produced from their seed.
Mushrooms CANNOT be “re-grown” with water. Fungus is very different from plants in several ways. You need sterile substrate to start a culture in. You can begin a culture from a fresh mushroom that has active mycelium. But as stated, the media you will grow it in must be sterile (autoclaved, pressure cooked, pasturized in oven)
Tiffany
Jim, you’ll notice that the article mentions that mushrooms can START in water, but must be transplanted to dirt for full growth.
Jacquelyn
This is so fun! I never knew. I’m excited and can’t wait to try this. 🙂
I shared this on my blog, lots of credit to you of course! Your blog is gorgeous.
Orville
A great way to free up space for this kind of thing is a shoe caddy. Hang it on a well lit north wall and put mason jars in each of the shoe sleeves. While it won’t work for many of the bulkier veg, it will certainly work great for the narrower ones. And keep them out of the way.
Ashleigh
Awesome suggestion: Shoe caddy.
Amanda
I’m happy I looked this up! I had heard about regrowing plants in water, and as a northeastern American expat in Singapore, the celery I’m used to for eating raw and cooking is an imported good, and quite pricey. I know I’m not going to get huge regrowth at a time (I’m only here for 15-week shifts) but I’m going to see what I can get in that short period with the equatorial sun streaming through my windows! Even if I just get a bit of the yummy leafy stuff, I can surely add it to soups! Great blog, and I’ll look forward to reading more.
Amanda
Oops – put two websites in and the form didn’t like that. Above is my Singapore blog and here is my cooking blog: accidentalchef527.blogspot.com.
sandra m
I am currently growing celery in water from an article I read on Pinterest. It’s now 7″ tall. I will definitely be trying the rest of these vegetables. Thanks Tiffany.
Tiffany
That’s huge Sandra! Way to go!