Do you like to try new things when you garden? I do. Especially when it comes to vegetable gardening.
Recently, I read a claim that you could re-grow your lettuce indoors just by planting the base (the part you throw away) in a container.
I had successfully re-grown green onions by putting the bottoms in water – so I was anxious to see if I could re-grow lettuce using a part that usually ends up in the garbage can or compost pile.
Here is my story on how my experiment went. (It’s a rather short story).
I started out with a small container, potting soil and the base from a head of Romaine lettuce.
On September 26th, I planted the base of the Romaine lettuce and put by a sunny window.
I must admit that I had high hopes of re-growing lettuce. At least enough for one serving of salad.
Well, it has been about 6 weeks since I planted the base of the lettuce.
And here is what it looks like….
My re-grown lettuce has reached a height of about 6 inches. Not quite enough for a serving of salad.
It is getting ready to ‘bolt’ and will soon flower, so i will not grow any more lettuce leaves.
I must admit that I am kind of disappointed with the results. **I should have been a little bit wary of the original claim that you can re-grow lettuce to eat because there were only ‘Before’ photos and not any ‘After’ photos.
Technically speaking, you can re-grow lettuce – but not enough to eat.
When I was a child, growing up in California, my mother would cut off the ends of carrots and we would put them in a saucer of water and grow the green, leafy tops. I loved doing that and wrote how to do it here. I do think re-growing lettuce can be a fun activity for kids when there isn’t much growing outdoors in the cooler months.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Have never tried to re-grow lettuce but what a plesant reminder about the carrot tops. I remember my Mom doing the same thing… Thanks for the memories !!!
We used to grow sweet potato vines from real sweet potatoes1 Fun to watch!
I grew some sweet potato vine because I was told it made a great greenery plant, and unknown to me until later, I also grew some sweet potatoes in the pot. They weren’ really big enough for a person to eat but my guinea pig loved them!!
Nice pictures. I think you can gather the seeds, and plant seeds in the spring.
I also grew green onions from the root ends. Since they were bought organic I cut the ends off and put them in a wide pot. Needed only shallow soil. I had organic green onion tops all season