Wonders Never Cease

If you follow the garden-related categories on Pinterest like I do, you've seen all those pins proclaiming you can regrow various kitchen scraps back into edible food. Sounds a bit too good to be true, doesn't it? You might get something to sprout or root, but a whole plant regrown from a nubbin typically destined for the compost? Hmmm.

Well, here's the thing: it just might actually work. In a fit of mild curiosity, I took a celery stump and plunked it in a container with a bit of water, along with some pebbles on the bottom to help keep it in place. I left it on the windowsill and, after just a few days, it had sprouted new leaves! So far, so good. I had bought another bunch of celery in the meantime, took its stump and started it the same way:

It also sprouted! I left them both there for a few weeks, adding water and rotating them for even sun exposure. In what seemed like no time, the second stump had caught up in size to the first one, and the leaves on both were looking lovely and dark green. The only issue? I still had yet to read any instructions on how to regrow celery. I scanned the internet and realized my little sproutlings were long overdo for being potted up in soil. I remedied this immediately, hoping it would also encourage them to send out roots:

This is by far a work in progress, but they are still going strong. If all goes well, I may eventually plant one or both outside, which would give them more room to grow. If nothing else, this has been a fun experiment in waste not/want not gardening :-) It's cost me nothing but a little time combined with a minimum of effort, and in return given me the pleasure of growing something during these chilly weeks of no-longer-Winter but not-quite-Spring. So, the next time you have the end of something lying around...

>o<