Sprouting Vegetables in Water?

Question:

I was talking with a fellow shopper in the supermarket today and she mentioned something about sticking the end of a celery bunch in water to sprout it. This got me to thinking about my grandparent's kitchen, they had things sprouting all over the place. I was wondering which veggies you can do this with and how and when to plant them in soil.

Answers:

Try It

This is a great question. Right now I am working on the celery one that was a post here at Thrifty Fun not long ago. (Editor's Note: Click the celery image to the right for more information.)

I know you can sprout avocado trees from their seed (I am doing that right now, too) but it seems to me that anything onions, garlic, leeks, radishes, etc could sprout roots if you placed the bottom side (where the roots originally were) down in water like you do avocados, with the top side being held up out of the water with toothpicks.

When you should plant them in the soil would depend on having a new healthy root system. Each time I purchase a different veggie I'll give it a try.

By Deeli

Lettuce

I tried romaine lettuce and it works. The only thing I discovered is that you can't totally rip out the center or it won't grow. I had two and one still had the center leaves and one didn't. So my new romaine is up about 2 inches.

By Alicehakes

Sweet Potatoes

I know you can grow sweet potatoes in a cup or dish by putting a little water in the cup and the vines will grow. You can cut off the vines and plant them in your garden in the spring time. They don't like cold weather. You can keep clipping the vines till you get all the sweet potatoes you want to grow. You can also clip off the ones you plant in garden after they start growing.

Let them grow until the first frost in the fall then dig them and store them in a dry place. I store mine in garage, covered with newspapers or plastic. I save the very small ones to plant the following year.

By K.W.

Garlic

I've sprouted lots of avocado seeds and they do grow plants, but don't expect fruit unless you live in the tropics, and even then, you're going to be waiting a long while.

Garlic grows well from the cloves if they're somewhat old, you can see the green sprout coming out the top). I'd start them in damp soil and not water though. I've been told that ginger grows well if you put the stem lengthwise in the ground or a pot, but I haven't tried it. That's not water, but I have put the end of ginger upright in water with toothpicks, but there wasn't a nodule out the side and I just got scummy water.

By susan winship

Do you have any ideas to share? Feel free to post them below.