Growing Healthy Vegetables

There is nothing more rewarding than picking your own fresh vegetables and salad from your garden. The best thing is you know exactly what they are grown in and they're chemical free.

By growing them fresh in the garden, it’s easier to prepare meals quickly when unexpected visitors arrive. No more rushing to the shop to replenish your produce, instead you can pick fresh from your backyard.

This allows you to grow vegetables to share with neighbours growing other types of vegetables or fruit. By sharing your vegetable produce you both win and saves money from both growing same types of plants.

I want to show how easy it is to reproduce both Onions and Celery in this article.

As we all use onions in so many ways in salads and cooked meals, having them fresh to pick from your garden will help. 

By growing your own vegetables you will no longer have to pick through the smelly ones in the shop that in many cases are already half rotten when buying prepackaged, as you know we cannot always see how bad they are until you get them home and then it's too late.

Onions are so easy to grow and take up very little ground so why not follow these examples on how to grow your own onions.

How to Grow Your Own Onions From Old Ones

Often after leaving your onions in the cupboard for a while they will either start to shoot or go bad. Do not fear all is not lost plant as you can plant these in good garden soil and they will both grow. 

Another way to grow onions from old ones is to cut the base off the onion and plant in your garden, instead of throwing it away.  These will also grow and produce fresh vegetable produce.

Prevent Tears When Cutting Onions

Place them in water and leave for a couple of minutes before peeling and cutting.

How to Grow Celery From an Old One

This is another frugal idea for growing Celery in your back yard from the base of your original celery. Plus you know this is grown free of chemicals and pesticides.

Step-by-step Instructions for Growing Celery From an Old Stalk

• The next time you buy celery or are given one you should cut it off where all the stalks meet at the base.
• Place in a dish with about 2cm of water.
• Rinse and change the water every day with fresh water
• If outer stalks deteriorate, remove them.
• Within about two weeks, the shoots will appear.
• Plant out in the garden or keep indoors if frost still prevalent.

 

Place in water for about two weeks

Plant out into garden or pot once new leaves appear

Straw Bale Gardens

Growing Vegetables from Seedlings or Seeds

If you are not into being frugal by growing from the old vegetables there is nothing wrong with growing your vegetables from seedlings or seeds.

You can still enjoy picking your fresh vegetables from the back yard and know they are chemical and pesticide free.

Small Back Yards

If you have a small back yard it does not mean you have to go without fresh produce. Vegetables can also be grown in pots on patios and balconies if limited space. If you place a trellis at the back of a pot you can still enjoy growing Cucumbers, Tomatoes and other varieties of climbing vegetables.

So if you want fresh fruit and vegetables consider getting started now by trying something different.

Growing Organic

Did You Know You Can Regrow Bok Choy Too?

 

Bok Choy in this picture has regrown and have already had a small feed from this plant after cutting tops off and replanting.  This is what you call having a green thumb and you can do this too, it's easy.

Always use a good garden soil before planting any of these.  If you follow these simple ideas you will never run out of fresh vegetables in your garden and you will save money in the process.

Bok-Choy - is another easy to regrow vegetable.  Just cut off the tops as you did with the celery and plant straight into the ground then water and fertilize well.  In this case, there is no need to put into the water first.  It is best to plant in the cool of the day for best results.

Spring Onions – Again cut the tops off the onions and plant individually into the garden and water in.

Silverbeet or Spinach – Cut the tops off and plant straight out into the garden and water well.

Lettuces - Many different types of lettuces have the roots still on them when you buy them, so just cut the tops off and plant in your garden.    If you grow, the normal lettuces in your garden then cut the heart off and leave the root to regrow.

Think about it, in other words with a bit of thought you can grow nearly anything from an older plant.  So go and start your new frugal garden and save money, and you know where it was grown too.

These spring onions have only been in the garden for a week and already re-shooting

Now that you are growing your own fresh vegetables, have you thought about growing your own grafted Tropical fruit tree?

When planting a vegetable garden it is a good idea to learn about companion planting. Some plants grow better with certain types of vegetables. For instance Celery grows well with Tomatoes, beans and cabbages.[1]

Garden Bucket Caddy