Grow Your Garden From Stems

 how to grow your own salad without seeds

Everyone needs a food garden. No matter how small your garden is, no matter how small your harvest, the fresh food you produce there will be tasty and nutritious. It will connect you with the natural world.

Well, you don’t have much or no outdoor space. Or, maybe it’s not spring and seed packets are hard to find. But you can start an indoor salad garden using products from your local grocery store!

Stumps, stems, and roots

Start at the production aisle of your local supermarket. One or two clusters, and romaine lettuce (or other greens attached to the base intact), some small onions, and several packages of fresh herbs that you use the most: basil, oregano, mint, thyme, sage, rosemary. You will like stems 4 to 6 inches long.

Go to the organic section to collect a couple of potatoes, a few beets, a few large radishes, and a few unripe turnips. Why organic? You will want your roots to germinate, and many root vegetables that are usually grown are sprayed to prevent germination.

These vegetables cover your garden openings. The price is low because you can eat a lot of what you buy.

GARDENING SUPPLIES

You may also need:

Containers for your plants.

 Factor controlling your imagination here. The only requirements for a good plant container are: it must hold soil, be well-drained, and have no toxic or hazardous substances. Coffee cans, plastic buckets, inflatable tubs, all with holes drilled in the bottom and sides; Clay pots of any size or shape; Burlap bags; Wooden boxes; Polypropylene shopping bags; Sand bundles; Window boxes; Sliced ​​soda bottles; The length of the PVC pipe through which the planting holes are cut; Pieces of roof sack with holes drilled in the bottom.

A bag of sterile pot soil.

 Do not use normal topsoil. It is very heavy for indoor plantings and may contain weed seeds, spores of plant diseases, and insect pests.

Some form of liquid fertilizer. 

You can find many complete liquid fertilizers at garden centers. I use a commercial product that mixes fish broth and sponge juice. (It smells great, but the smell will dissolve within a few hours.) Apply any fertilizer according to package directions.

Sunny windowsills or full-spectrum fluorescent light fixture or two. Although leaf crops do not need as much sun as flowers and fruits, your growing crops will need a few hours of sunlight each day. Indoor farmers have developed some truly unique ways to make the most of the light they have.

Watering and a plant.

 You can water yourself from a plastic jug. One from a recycled spray bottle or dollar store will work well for misting.

Growing salads and soup greens

Celery from a stump: Cut 2 inches down from the cluster of celery (then place the stems in the refrigerator to use) and place it "plant", side by side, in a saucer with water or an inch or two or so of moist sand or potting soil. The leaves, then the soft stems emerge slowly from the center. Once the stump is well-rooted, transfer it to a larger pot. You can harvest tender stalks and leaves for soups and salads for many months.

Follow the same procedure for celery:

 romaine or other lettuce from a stump. Leave the new leaves to grow from the center and select the outer leaves as they mature.

Clone fresh basil, sage, mint, thyme, oregano, or rosemary: remove the lower leaves from the stems of fresh herbs and set the stems in water. Keep the water fresh. Once your stem has good roots, you can plant it in pot soil in a suitable container. Keep plants growing in a sunny window or under full-spectrum fluorescent. Organize "branches" to clone new plants.

Sweet Potato Leaves: 

If you don't shop often at ethnic supermarkets or cook a lot in the Asian style, sweet potatoes are lush, tasty, nutritious — and create a beautiful, unpretentious houseplant. Note: Do not try this with regular potatoes, as their sprouts and leaves are poisonous. Cut the potato root in half or leave it whole. Using the toothpick method, place your sweet potato in a jar of water and place the cut side under the water so it will start rooting and sprouting. Every little "eye" above the water level