Growing plants from garbage

[Josh]

Well, not exactly.  I saw an article online somewhere about people continuing to grow celery from the "stumps" of cut stalks.  Naturally, I took the idea and applied it to AP...

From Aquaponics in the Florida Keys

From Aquaponics in the Florida Keys

From Aquaponics in the Florida Keys

The growth rate is incredible.  These have been in the system for about 3 days.  After I saw the results, I thought that it might work for any vegetable with a "head".  Enter romaine...

From Aquaponics in the Florida Keys

The only thing so far is that the outside layers will rot quickly if they get too wet.  Im stoked at the idea of salvaging these plants that are otherwise discarded.  Anyone tried anything like this?

Josh

[George]

I get your drift but at my house vegetable scraps aren't garbage.  They're food for worms, black soldier fly larvae, chickens or maybe just composting material, which is food for worms and for my ground-grown vegetables .

Thus far, the only things I've rooted in aquaponics media are tomato plants and strawberries but I'll try to keep other things in mind too, after seeing this.  Good idea. 

[Josh]

Ok, actually my vegetable scrapes are food for somethings else as well, but you know what I mean. 

Anyway, give this a shot.  Im excited to see what the end result is.

[Bobby McGovern]

I think this is a great idea especially for something like celery that sits in the vegetable drawer for a while before it's all used up.  Planting a dozen celery plants would be a waste so this looks like a perfect solution.

[Brian144]

Joshua,

    If you have an interest in celery you might also consider purchasing celery seed in the bulk spice section of your health food oriented market and using this material as plentiful source of cheap celery plants.  You may get other ideas browsing through the sprout-able seeds you find in the bulk foods section.  I've heard that greens of amaranth and quinoa produce generous quantities of nourishing greens.

      You can also plant and grow the rooted bottoms of green onions.   Sweet potato slips, from healthy tubers, will often put out  a large healthy vine.  I've heard it said that even though the sweet potato is a marvelously nutritious and under rated vegetable we should actually be eating the leaves and tender stems which are even higher in nutrients.

       Stems that you separate out from fresh basil can be rooted in water and grown as new plants.  Here is a you-tube video from someone who is harvesting fresh herbs and greens for his salad and then starting new plants from the stems he separated out.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M-b4_Tm650

          I hope all this gives you food for thought as well as for your table.

          Be well!

 

[Josh]

Thanks for the info.  I've been meaning to try this technique with sweet potatoes.

As for the basil cuttings, you're absolutely right.  Over the last year or so, my system has become basically a large basil bed with the odd pepper plants or tomato plant sprinkled in.  The basil (roughly 75 plants in 3 media beds) are all cuttings from 1 or 2 original plants.  They root remarkably fast in AP water.  I own a small restaurant so I go through a ton of the stuff.

From Aquaponics in the Florida Keys

[Diane Reilly]

Looking Nice,

Some people just seem to have trouble gardening, while others can grow anything. Where do you fit in? It requires a certain amount of skill to grow a good garden. DIY Tools

 

[Bobby McGovern]

I stuck a romaine stump in my media four days ago and it has quite a few 1/2" new leaves growing from the cut surface of the stump!

[Brian144]

Joshua,

    Your basil certainly does look very lush and healthy.  Do you have a citrus tree growing in your AP bed?

[Chuck Goecke]

Looks like a pepper, like maybe a banana pepper.

Brian144 said:

Joshua,

    Your basil certainly does look very lush and healthy.  Do you have a citrus tree growing in your AP bed?

[Josh]

@Bobby:  Cool!  Let us know how it turns out!

@ Brian.  Thanks.  Yeah the basil does well for me fortunately.  Chuck is right, the "tree" is a habenero pepper (which sadly got pulled out today), tho there is a banana pepper in there as well.  I actually do have a meyer's lemon and a key lime tree in another media  bed however.

[Andrea Mills]

I have tried it recently with celery and like you said the outside layers will rot quickly if they get too wet (I put mine in a ebb & flow gravel bed). However, I just harvested some "re-grown" celery for a soup and it was delicious! I haven't tried lettuce yet, also heard it works well with green onions.

[Evelin Röshel]

Hi Brian,

thanks for posting this link - excellent info!

Evelin Röshel

Landkreis Heilbronn, Germany

Brian144 said:

Joshua,

    If you have an interest in celery you might also consider purchasing celery seed in the bulk spice section of your health food oriented market and using this material as plentiful source of cheap celery plants.  You may get other ideas browsing through the sprout-able seeds you find in the bulk foods section.  I've heard that greens of amaranth and quinoa produce generous quantities of nourishing greens.

      You can also plant and grow the rooted bottoms of green onions.   Sweet potato slips, from healthy tubers, will often put out  a large healthy vine.  I've heard it said that even though the sweet potato is a marvelously nutritious and under rated vegetable we should actually be eating the leaves and tender stems which are even higher in nutrients.

       Stems that you separate out from fresh basil can be rooted in water and grown as new plants.  Here is a you-tube video from someone who is harvesting fresh herbs and greens for his salad and then starting new plants from the stems he separated out.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M-b4_Tm650

          I hope all this gives you food for thought as well as for your table.

          Be well!