How To Regrow Vegetables From Scraps

Future Homes Network

Rather than throwing your scraps in the bin or the compost, why not grow new vegetables?! Here's your quick guide to growing root veg from scraps!

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:07 Reducing food waste has never been more important, but did you know you could be using your veg

00:11 scraps to grow your own?

00:13 Here's my quick and easy guide to growing your own root veg basics using nothing but

00:17 leftovers.

00:18 So first of all, the humble potato.

00:21 It's a staple of most UK dishes and it's really simple to grow your own.

00:25 All you need to do is get some peelings.

00:27 They need to be about two inches across and crucially they need to have eyes on them.

00:32 All you need to do, let the peeling grow out and then plant it.

00:35 So it needs about four inches of deep, rich soil.

00:39 And you need to pop them in a sunny spot.

00:41 So you pop them in with the eyes facing upwards.

00:45 Make sure you've got the four inch depth, otherwise they won't grow properly.

00:48 And then about 10 weeks after planting, you'll notice potato plants growing and that's when

00:52 your potatoes are ready to harvest.

00:55 Now sweet potatoes are a little bit more tricky to grow, but it is possible.

00:59 So it's worth having a go.

01:01 Basically you need to cut a sweet potato in half and it needs to be suspended in water

01:06 like this to allow shoots to grow.

01:08 Now my potato fits perfectly in this glass jar, but say you had a wider container.

01:14 If you insert toothpicks around the side, it will suspend the potato in the water and

01:18 allow those shoots to grow.

01:20 So once they start sprouting out the top, all you do is twist the leaves off.

01:24 And it's very similar to lettuce, which we talked about growing last time.

01:28 So you pop the leaves into some water and they will begin to sprout and grow roots.

01:33 Once those roots start to grow, they're ready to pop outside in soil.

01:37 Now sweet potatoes love sandy soil.

01:39 They love really sunny conditions and they're not very social, a bit like us at the moment.

01:42 So make sure you space them out well.

01:45 Finally onions.

01:46 Literally you cannot go wrong growing these.

01:48 They're really easy to grow inside or outside.

01:51 All you need to do is cut off the root.

01:52 That's the bottom bit in case you were wondering, leaving about half an inch of onion with it.

01:57 Then you simply place it in some soil this way down, so root down into the soil and it

02:03 will start to grow new roots.

02:05 Once that happens, this bit will actually die off.

02:07 So you can remove the onion, leave those roots and then it will take a couple of months and

02:12 your onions will be underground ready to harvest.

02:16 So if you manage to grow your veg from scratch with scraps, then share your pictures with

02:20 us on Instagram using the hashtag #SowRealHomes.

02:23 [Music]

02:30 (upbeat music)

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