4 Vegetables You Can Easily Grow At Home For Free

Fresh produce can be expensive. But with a little planning (and some potting soil), you can easily grow your own garden of veggies out of scraps you might have otherwise thrown away. Not only does this save you money, it helps the environment, too. Now all you have to do is roll up your sleeves and get potting! Green thumb not included.

1. Celery

Save the root end of that celery! Cut the stalks back to about an inch above the roots. Then all you have to do is stick it in a shallow dish of water, make sure it gets plenty of sunshine and spritz it with water once or twice a week. Leaves will start to sprout quickly. After about a week has passed, you can transplant the celery to a pot. Make sure to keep the new leaves above the soil level, and enjoy your freshly-grown celery in two to three weeks.

2. Potatoes

If you have a few spuds that are looking a little too spotty to eat, don’t worry! Find a potato with one or two eyes on it and dry it thoroughly at room temperature. Plant it in an 8-inch container, cover it with 4 inches of soil and add more as roots appear. You can do the same thing with sweet potatoes, just make sure the potato has plenty of eyes since it’s a bigger vegetable.

3. Carrot Tops

While you can’t actually grow back an entire carrot, you can regrow the leafy tops. These are great in salads, pesto (basil who?) and on sandwiches in place of lettuce or watercress. All you have to do is place the carrot tops with leaves attached in a shallow dish of water. Place in direct sunlight and watch those carrot tops grow.

4. Lettuce

Similar to the way celery re-roots in water, you can take the butt of a head of lettuce or cabbage and do the same thing. Make sure to cut the leaves about an inch from the root of the head of lettuce or cabbage. Place it in a dish of water, keeping the leaves well above the waterline so they don’t rot. Keep the plant in a sunny spot and change the water every other day or so, and in a week you’ll have a whole new head!

For more vegetables you can regrow from scraps, check out this list, and this list too.