Hallo from Idaho..

[MountainWard]

Does anyone else regrow their waste produce?

Some onion cut offs growing.. You cut the bottom 1/4 inch of the onion that had the roots and bury just under the surface of the soil and water it it. In a few days they root and begin to grow a stalk out the middle of the onion. It will "not" produce an onion bulb but it will produce greens and go to seed if you desire.

I also plant the top 1 or 2 inch piece I cut off from carrots as well. They also will not grow a new root, but they will grow a big bushy plant of greens and go to seed as well. I grow these in the winter in the house and then transplant to the garden in early spring.

I love doing leeks they do amazingly well with regrowing. When you plant seed you have to wait for the second year for them to flower like onions, carrots etc.. By buying a leek at the store you can use 90% of the leek and regrow the the bottom 2 or 3 inches and get seed that same year as it is technically the second growing year for the plant.

I grow these in the house during winter and then plant them out in the garden in early spring as well.

The same as above you can also regrow the cutoff portions of celery bought at the store. I also grow these in the winter and the replant into the garden early spring.

I have also done this with cabbage from the store, brussels sprouts from the store, cabbage I have found a little more tricky than the rest. I would also like to try lettuce as it is supposed to be the same way.

Anyone else have anything like this? I would love to know more plants that I could do this with.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I do! I love regrowing anything I can get my hands on. I've grown lots of herbs (including mint and rosemary) from supermarket bought. And I did try re-growing vegetables as well, but the high humidity often kills the plants for me, as they rot. But I've had them grow roots so I know it's definitely possible!
I love seeing other people do this too

I also do a lot of seed-saving. Do you do something similar to that as well? It can greatly cut down the costs of growing.


I'm not sure how well garlic would handle the wet surroundings. Whilst I've seen people grow garlic on a glass of water, having the actual bulb be wet might cause it to rot. At least, that's what it's been doing here for us in the subtropics.
I think some plants that might be good to grow in your clmate might be water chestnuts, water mint (and most mint), water spinach, cress, pennywort, water parsley, pickerel rush, watercress, cat tails and many more.

On another note, do you know what temperatures the water tends to be? I'd be curious to see how that changes the way plants grow.

 

[MountainWard]

I do a lot of my own seed from what I have grown myself, not so much from store produce though. The wife has grown tomato and bell peppers from store bought fruit. In fact we had a tomato plant that lived for 2 1/2 years in the house sprouted from a store bought tomato. When I went to remove the plants around it I found that it has rooted into like 4 other pots of tomato plants. It never produced many tomatoes but it was a nice looking plant and I love the smell of tomato plants in the house.

I have grown many bean plants from store bought beans, I had a half yard growing box in the kitchen next to the southern window and I commonly grew beans in the winter. One year I had them trained all across the ceiling of the kitchen with beans hanging down. That was quite cool looking. It only produced a single plate full of beans but it was fun.

We have also grown many avocado trees from the fruit bought from the store. I have a 1 yard planter on wheels in the living room that I plant stuff in. They grow well though once they get about 14 feet high the leaves reach a spot between windows and they begin to die out. We have vaulted ceiling in the living room and they have room to grow to 18 feet high but the lighting becomes a problem.

I also grow wheat from store bought wheat red durum usually and I harvest young for greens. I also sprout Mung beans from the store for bean sprouts to be used in stir fries and salad.

I have also grown oyster mushrooms and portabella mushrooms from store bought mushrooms. My first run at regrowing mushrooms..

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's the spirit! Heck yeah!

Ohhhh... now I want to grow beans across the kitchen....
Too bad we only get some afternoon sun there, as the shed blocks any other light as well in that area. And I don't feel too confident about growing edible food in our lavatory. It's got the biggest window and the most light... but yuck. And no amount of washing the veg will get that idea out of my head, haha.

I've only tried regrowing mushrooms once, but never got them to sprout. What's your "recipe"?

 

[KIGardening]

Does anyone else regrow their waste produce?

Ohh yes. I have done this successfully with Onion, Spring Onion, Beetroot, Carrot, Potato and Celery.

@MountainWard How did you manage to regrow the mushrooms. I failed at mushrooms terrible so I like to know

 

[MountainWard]

I cleaned the outside of the mushrooms with hydrogen peroxide and then cut them into thin slices. I boil some paper with a little bit of stove ash and eggshell and boiled some pill bottles. It is important to have a very clean growing susbstrate and growing container. For bigger operations it works well to use a pressure cooker and cook at 15 psi for sterilizing materials or one can also use a cold fermentation in an alkali mixture.

Once the growing substrate was done and cool I layered it into the pill bottles moist but wet I just squeezed the excess water out of the paper. In each layer I layered in thin slices of oyster mushroom. Within a few days everything in the pill bottles was turning white with mushroom growth. I had to allow oxygen into the pill bottles without allowing contaminants in so I use a cloth tape covering drilled holes on the side of them.

Once it is well grown with white then you put it where it can get cool fresh air, I have a window that has a cold breeze that leaks through it and I put them there covered by a plastic bag. I popped the lids off and boom they began to fruit. That was my first test of this idea. I have grown larger amount in bags since then.

I wanted to try Portabella so I did a grain mix with a touch of stove ash, some mulched wood and rich soil added to it with a touch of eggshell. I then put this into jars and cooked it in my pressure cooker for 90 minutes to sterilize. I created a small makeshift blow hood to keep in a plastic tent and sprayed everything down with hydrogen peroxide. I cut the bella mushrooms up and ran then through small food processor lightly and broke them into small bits. Added the bits to the substrate in the cooked jars. I then put them in a fridge I have downstairs and kept them in there nice and cool. I had cloth medical tape over small pieces of hepa filter over a hole drilled in each lid for oxygen. Nearly every jar grew good mycellium in it. I then planted that into some good composted soil down in the garden. I got a few good mushrooms out of it though the bear, deer and got most of them.

Every portion of a mushroom can be used to propagate more mushroom. Different mushrooms require different growing substrate materials but pretty much every mushroom can be regrown into more mushrooms.

 

[MountainWard]

I have been thinking I could put some plants out that can handle freezing temps as the water is ice free unlike normal. Usually it isn't ice free until May, this winter has been warm though.

The thought occurred to me though that even if the plants are cold and freeze tolerant sitting in moist soil for a few weeks or a month or two without any real growth might actually lead to rotting. I calculated the average expected temp over the next 14 days and it is 32.4 F so too cold I think to see any growth on even the freeze tolerant plants.

This also got me to thinking of water temp as opposed to soil temp and I realized that it will take the water more time to increase in temp than it does for the soil to do so. If I am wicking up 34-36 F temp water into the soil that is going to keep the soil temp on the rafts down into the 30's potentially into June. This could be a bit of a growing issue. I could start plants in the house but then planting them into soil in the 30 to 40F range might actually cold shock even the cold tolerant plants. I am beginning to think that the idea of this giving me a much earlier start on gardening may not be entirely accurate.

I could plant in milk/water jugs and keep the tops on to form a bit of a greenhouse and hoop the rafts with clear plastic, this raise the day time temps a bit but with the cold water seeping up into the soil I am not sure how much of a difference the hoop house idea will make on early growth rate.

Any thoughts on the water temperature consideration?

A quote from a movie keeps going through my mind.. "It takes a geological event to raise a million gallons of water by 10 degrees in a day".. I don't know how accurate the statement is but it does illustrate the fact that it takes some time to change the temperature of in my case about 1.5 million gallons of water by even a few degrees. This would work to my benefit in fall/winter but to my detriment in the late winter/spring.

P,S

I just did some checking and I was right, 40F is about the bottom cutoff on soil temp even for the extreme cold tolerant plants. I imagine that has to do with enzymes and chemistry needing the temp to function properly. So I need to start tracking water temp and see what it is doing. I need to plant at around 40F water temp minimum I would say and seriously consider covered rafts for a little added temperature during the days to offset the cold water temps.

 

[MountainWard]

After doing a little research I have found the average pond/lake water temp around here by month. I can expect to hit an average of 40F water temp April 15 to May 1st. My water temp should hit a max average temp of 70F through the month of July and back down to an average of freezing by mid October through mid November. So I should have a max useful growing period of between about May 1 and October 1 so 5 months... That isn't too dang bad... Our average last frost is May 21st and average first frost is September 16 or 3.75 month growing period on average. An increase of 5 weeks potential growing season would really be something. Especially on the years when our last frost is July 5 and first frost hits the first or second week of September leaving us a growing season of about 9 to 10 weeks.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

There are ways to slowly raise the water temperature, but it does carry the risk of killing animal life because their bodies might not adapt to it too well. I'm also unsure if it can be done on naturally occuring situations. There are solar pool covers that people use to naturally heat their pools, but I'm not sure how that would affect the wildlife and nature.

I think testing with a mini-raft and what the soil temperature is compared to the water might be a good idea. Plants also naturally give off a small amount of heat, which could also slightly affect the temperatures.

Is the water stagnant or moving?

I also imagine the water might stay warm longer than the outdoor temperatures, as it's not as quickly affected. I wonder how that might change the plants' growth and if they might continue growing for longer as well

 

[MountainWard]

Oi... Heavy snow the last 3 days... More snow expected every day for the next 10+ days... What fun... I have many plants started in my house though.. I can pretend it is spring in the house.. lol

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I hope you and the family are safe

What plants have you got inside at the moment?

 

[MountainWard]

Just the wife and I and yes all is good, this is normal for us here. We average 105 inches of snow of a year so we are quite used to this.

So far I am just doing the regrowing thing as it is too early to be staring anything yet. lol I did that in February once and I had tomato plants nearly 5 feet tall all over the house. Impressive looking but not useful especially as all of them died within a week of putting them outside the third week of June.

Right now I have beet tops, turnip tops, Brussels sprouts, carrot tops, yellow and purple onion, green and purple cabbage, two leaf lettuces, Nampa cabbage, leeks, cilantro, ginger root and celery. I would like to expand that to chard, kale and mustard as well. Do all that until it is time to start sprouting seed for the cold tolerant plants.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Ah yeah. So I assume you have backup plans for if it gets real bad too? Another member on here (he's busy so he's not as active of late) @DThille also deals with heavy snow and cold seasons. It's be interesting to check out his posts.

How do the carrots handle being transplanted (assuming you do so)? I've heard that they don't cope well with it.

I've got shampoo ginger here myself, but it's not doing too well with the heat and humidity at the moment. Everything is sopping wet and what's left of the grass just squishes under the feet, haha.

 

[MountainWard]

Back up plans, well it doesn't get that bad here, the most snow we ever get at a time is like 2 to 3 feet. I just run my snow blower and clear the 600 or so feet of driveway area I have, other than that everything is just normal. One year we had to shovel snow off roofs as it rained on the snow and then froze hard and the snow wasn't dropping off the roofs here. There were a great many roofs caved in that year and to be sure we weren't a part of that statistic we cleared our roofs. Generally though the snow is never really an issue for us. Worse case scenario I chain up all four tires on my truck and then I can get through most anything even with a couple feet of snow on the ground.

This is just normal February, March and sometimes April and May weather for us.

As for the carrots, I have never had an issue with putting those out, but then again I commonly put out two to three hundred regrows each year, never really paid any attention to how many make it. I just grow them for greens and to allow them to go to seed. As for ginger root I have only grown it successfully once and that was in the house. I hade nice big 4 foot tall green stalks on them that I used for greens as flavoring in soups and salads. They never had any real root growth just the greens. It needs to be in the 80's to grow ginger root as it is a tropical plant, my house tops out about 62F in the winter months and about 75F daytime summer temps and upper 40'ss to 60's night time summer temps. It is hard for me to grow ginger root in the house even during summer much less winter.

 

[MountainWard]

I would note that while "I" don't have any great issue with the snow my two youngest sons John and Jarad have had some issues with it. The two of them have managed to roll three rigs in just under 12 months as of last February..

How they all walked from the Mustang roll is beyond me. They went off a 75 foot slope on the mountain and hit a tree about 35 feet up. Jarad went through the convertible top and hit the tree. The tree broke off and landed on top of Jarad while John and their buddy rolled the car end over end something like 20 times hitting another two trees on the way down. Jarad managed to lift the car enough to get them both out after getting out from under the tree. lol... Then trying to get John back up the hill in the gurney the rescue crew dropped John and he slid 40 feet back down the hill on the gurney. They were both released from the hospital a couple hours later. Scared the crap out of mom and I though and John's wife as they had a 7 day old daughter at the time. I hope and pray that those two grow up before they manage to kill themselves.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's a lot of snow to me! Hahaha. I come from The Netherlands, sea-side too; so the snow doesn't get that thick ever. And nowadays I live in sub-tropical Australia, and there's never been any snow here, hah.

Goodness me! That would've been terrifying
I've only held a license for about 3 or 4 years myself and have thankfully never gotten into any accidents whilst driving. Admittedly I got very close once, but other traffic noticed me losing control of my car and never even entered the roundabout I slid onto. I was screaming profanities at myself and the car to be fair, maybe they heard me

 

[MountainWard]

My wife's great grandma Pearl came to the US from Holland and her great grandpa Poulstra came here from Friesland. My families lineages are Norwegian became Norman became English became American.

I am used to snow, I remember having to go out a second story window as a kid and dig down to the front door so we could all get out of the house. Growing up in central and Eastern Oregon I was used to extreme snow and cold. When I came back from Desert Storm and got out of the Navy I moved to Idaho instead of Oregon and been here ever since. Other than my time in the sandbox I have spent my entire life in very cold and snowy climates. While I love the look and temperatures I am not a great fan of the difficulty in gardening. Other than the gardening issues I love this climate.

 

[MountainWard]

I managed to find a picture of a couple avocado trees growing in the living room, fairly small in this photo but it shows them..

 

[daveb]

snow looks like right up in the front along side to the west of Grand Tetons, my uncle has a farm out there havent talked with him in ages they came out east bit over a decade ago laughing cause we had about 2 1/2 feet of snow and what they just left was 6 feet the got dumped in a massive storm

your boys got lucky i can attest to that walked away from one almost as crazy as the mustang boy took ride in over into trees. Just before Graduation had a guy come around a corner on my side of road, 5 of us in car took us almost head on only cause was quick enough to turn car to right....... chuckles we were having wheelchair races a few weeks later down the corridors of hospital. older pic a bit grainy but you can tell car was pretty mangled

 

[MountainWard]

The regrow plants at the moment. Never tried cilantro before, it doesn't look great thus far, probably to cool in here for it to do well. The rest seems to be doing well enough though.

Leeks and carrot tops, both going for about 2 to 3 days now.

Onion tops and Brussels sprouts bottoms.

Carrot tops and lettuce.

Cabbage, lettuce, Brussels, garlic and ginger root.

Potato that had already developed roots.

Beet tops... Not sure where the turnip top picture went half the pics I uploaded didn't upload for some reason.

While I can't garden for some time yet, I can at least grow some greens for my salads in the house while I wait it out...