Recently I have been regrowing veg from bits that would have previously gone in the compost heap. I have had success with regrowing celery, onions and garlic so far and the Reduce Your Food Waste Facebook group members have also been experimenting. There is nothing to stop you joining in too! It’s a lot of fun, costs nothing (especially if you make your own compost) and it is really satisfying to see the plants grow! Have a go – if it all goes wrong, you haven’t lost anything you weren’t going to chuck away anyway!

In this post I am going detail the step involved in growing celery from the stump. Also if you keep scrolling you will see a picture of my regrown celery planted in the ground.

How to grow celery from the stump:

1. Place your celery bottom in a bowl with a little water on a sunny window ledge. Note: you may need to suspend it in the water. Poke cocktail sticks into it’s sides and then balance the sticks on the edges of the bowl/ container you are growing in. This is because it allows roots to grow underneath.
2. Change and refresh the water every day or two
3. Put the celery in a pot with some compost once it has sprouted and grown some roots. This could take several weeks.
4. Water regularly so the soil is kept damp, but don’t over water
5. Harden off and plant outside in a sunny spot if it is warm enough. If you don’t have any outside space, or it is too cold, keep it on a sunny window ledge.
6. Harvest as desired and leave enough at the bottom to see if it will regrow again!

Here’s what my celery that I regrew from the stump, looks like in the ground just over two months since I first started regrowing it!

Now it’s your turn to grow celery from the stump! If you do, then let me know how you get on – I’d love to hear about it. Also feel free to join the Reduce Your Food Waste Facebook group and share it there!

Want some more ideas about how to reduce food waste – check out this blog post here: A round of use it up ideas!

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Why grow your own mint?

1. Mint tea. There is nothing lovelier than a fresh cup of mint tea. It is also great to be able to use your home grown and dried mint for tea throughout the winter. Teabags contain hidden plastic and it is so much better to avoid them where possible. As an added plus you will save yourself some money!

2. Bath salts. Mint is a refreshing addition to your bath! Mixed with some bath salts can make a great zero waste, cleansing, chemical free alternative to bath bubbles. They can be made in a similar way to my lavender bath salts. I use either large mint leaves which can easily be fished out the bath. Or dried and ground mint which will flush down the drain easily and which are a lot less expensive than the shop bought versions!

3. Mint icecream. Dry and grind up some mint, add it to some mashed very ripe bananas to taste and freeze. Mix and refreeze a couple of times as it is freezing as otherwise it will go rock hard! It makes a delicious sugar free, dairy free, vegan, zero waste ice-cream. It’s also a great way to rescue black bananas! You can also do the same with cream and it tastes really good. It is difficult to get unpackaged or reusable packaged cream.

4. Mint sauce. Mix some dried mint with some white wine vinegar and you have mint sauce! Some people like to add a little sugar too, but I prefer to stay sugar free.

5. Mint chocolate truffles. I’m sure there are naughtier recipes out there than mine, but I like a sugar free paleo version.

You might think that sachets of dried mint or mint teabags aren’t that expensive, but over time the costs add up. By avoiding unnecessary plastic packaging you can save energy on watering and transporting the mint. By watering the plants with water stored in a rain butt there is no fuel needed. It is also a great feeling to be able to eat mint that you grew all year round!

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Lavender is in season and I have loads of lovely fragrant lavender growing in my garden right now. There are many uses for lavender, but my current favourite is to make lavender wands. I don’t use them for casting spells – I use them to keep my clothes smelling nice (but if you or your kids want to make one for casting spells, don’t let me stop you :)).

These wands make great gifts and one year, I made a load as going home gifts from my kids birthday party and they went down a storm!

I’ve shared my instructions for how to make a lavender wand below:

How it is zero waste?

I made use of lavender growing in my garden, so it was unpackaged, home grown and used up. I also made sure to leave plenty for the bees, as that was the main reason I decided to grow lavender in the first place!

The ribbon had been sitting in my cupboard for years and needed using up. I also save ribbons from clothing, gifts and more to reuse for this kind of project. I store my ribbons in an old toiletry bag!

It is really simple, doesn’t take long and they make great gifts! 

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Raised planters keep everything growing where it is meant to be, are easy to maintain and slow the slugs down. A few years ago my husband made some for our kitchen garden. I asked myself whether it was cost effective to grow veg (read more here and here).

It wasn’t particularly cost effective the way we did it, but it was cheaper than buying a pre-made raised bed. Prices vary, but I saw one in my local garden centre for around £70. Whereas the wood for the two beds my husband made cost £60. Raised beds might be a good investment if you get years of veg growing out of them.

However, I now know there is no need to buy a raised bed frame. You can get them for free!

I found a bath on Freecycle and convinced my husband that we could use it as a raised veg bed. We want to maximize the space we have and grow as much veg as possible. So although we already have some raised beds, we wanted more! He went and picked it up, put it in the back of the car and brought it home. I was a bit unsure about whether the drainage in the bath was good enough with just a plug hole. My husband decided to drill some holes in the bottom of the bath to help with that. We also raised it off the ground on a couple of bricks to allow the water to drain off. The bath wasn’t particularly attractive in itself. I did think about decorating it a bit but thinking was as far as I got!

Now that we have veg growing in it though, I don’t think it needs decorating! 

We have cucumbers! Is it just me or is this one looking rather rude

Courgettes are on their way – not quite big enough to pick yet. The picture makes them look bigger than they are.

We also have some tiny squashes coming through – we think they are butternut squashes. The bath is planted full of cucumber, squash and courgette plants. So we aren’t quite sure what they are all going to turn out like yet!

Our next project  

I also convinced my husband to pick up a divan bed being given away on Facebook. We were going to rent our spare room to two students at a time, but actually the bed wasn’t great. The mattress was rubbish, and it stank of smoke.

We later changed our minds about having two students at once. We have just stuck with having one student which has worked well for us so far. Understandably my husband wasn’t very impressed with me. He had told me it smelt of smoke when he went to pick it and gave me a chance to say no thanks. Plus he had to pick it up from a flat which was up a few flights of stairs. I felt bad about not taking it once we had said we would. I wasn’t there and couldn’t judge quite how bad it was.

When it came home I realised the error of my ways. It was relegated it to the garage after I admitted that actually I didn’t want it. Lesson learned though – only take stuff from smoke free homes!   The next plan was to chop it in half and take it to the dump. When the fabric came off, it looked like this:

By adding a few planks of wood around the edges and some waterproof lining we have ourselves another veg bed! Clearly I had that plan in mind the whole time and knew exactly what I was doing (or not ? ) Warning; Be careful when using upcycled containers for growing fruit, veg and herbs. Some wood is treated with harsh chemicals which may not be food safe.

A while ago my husband made a herb planter out of old pallets. However, we hadn’t lined it and I was worried about what it might have been treated with. In the end we got rid of it – read more here.

How is your garden growing? Has anyone made a raised bed out of a bath? Or an old divan bed or done any other upcycling in the garden? I’d love to hear about your projects!

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Around a week or so ago, I had the last salad of the year from our veg garden.  Everything was homegrown and it included:

• tomatoes – yellow and red
• cucumber
• radishes
• rocket
• pak choi
• courgette
• chives
• lemon balm

The post A home grown winter salad! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

Earlier in the year I read a blog post somewhere about spaghetti squash.  It is a type of squash that has flesh that once cooked can be separated out to look like spaghetti.  I hadn’t heard of it before and got a little bit excited about the whole idea of squash that could act as a rice or pasta substitute. I decided that we (i.e. my husband) should grow some in our veg garden.

So my lovely husband went off and bought some seeds, planted them, nurtured them and watered them. You get the idea! A few months later ta-da we had two spaghetti squashes.  I’m not sure that was a particularly great result, however two squashes are better than none. 

How to tell if spaghetti squash is ripe

I did a bit of reading on when to harvest them. Everything I read said that if you want to know how to tell if spaghetti squash is ripe look for these two things:

1. Wait until they have turned a yellow/ orange colour.
2. Check to see if you can scratch the surface. If you can leave a scratch mark it isn’t ripe.

We waited and waited and the entire plant died.  The squash was still green though and didn’t look like it had any intention of going orange. Our ones scratched easily and definitely weren’t ripe.

Can you eat unripe green spaghetti squash?

Not to be deterred I googled whether you can eat green under-ripe squash or not and I came across a couple of blog posts which said yes – you can (On food you can’t buy at the grocery store and how to cook spaghetti squash as summer squash)!  You just treat them like summer squashes which are usually things like courgettes, patty pan and marrows.  They are softer than winter squash and you can eat the whole thing.  

Roasted green squash

As usual I’m not great at following instructions i.e. a recipe.  I chopped my squash up into chunks and roasted them in the oven with a little olive oil.  I decided not to add herbs this time as I wanted to see what the squash tasted like.  Unripe squash might not sound very appealing, but actually it was really delicious.

If you want more ideas about how to use up a squash or pumpkin (ripe or not), take a look at this blog post: How to eat a whole pumpkin or squash with nothing wasted

Do you have any other foods that you aren’t sure how to use up? Check out my round up of use it up ideas! Also if you have any questions about how to use up food that you have grown come and join my Eco Thrifty Kitchen Club (a free to join Facebook group). The group is a friendly community with the aim of helping people to waste less in their kitchens!

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Every year around Easter time is the Jewish festival of Passover and a time when Jews go hunting for horseradish. It is needed as part of a traditional meal remembering the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Several years ago, I bought some horseradish at Passover time.  Then I got given some more.  I had two massive horseradish roots and remembering that my mum never bought horseradish, planted some in my garden.  

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This year the flowers are coming thick and fast and every so often I pick a few off, inspect them to make sure they are insect free.

I then give them a rinse, pat them dry and then leave them in a bowl or on a plate in a cool cupboard to dry. Once they are dried I store them in a glass jar.

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I find it lasts for ages like that and some years we have managed to be totally self sufficient for garlic from one year to the next.

When should you plant garlic in the UK?

September/ October is the best time to plant garlic, right after you harvest it. However we planted our first batch of garlic in March/ April time and it worked just fine.

When we harvest the garlic, we usually split up some bulbs into cloves and replant them for the next year.

When should you harvest garlic in the UK?

Garlic is usually ready to harvest in September / October time. Wait until the stems have gone brown and either hard (if hardneck) or wilted (if softneck)

The two types of garlic

There are lots of varieties of garlic, but they all fall into one of two categories – hardneck and softneck.  The softneck ones have floppy stalks and the hardneck ones are stiff.

How to plait garlic with a softneck

Softneck garlic has flexible stalks, which means you can plait it. There is a technique to plaiting garlic and you can find out how to plait it here: how to braid garlic

Remember to cut off the hairy roots to make it a neater finish.

Can you plait hardneck garlic?

Hardneck garlic can’t be plaited. You need to use string or ribbon to tie them up using a technique called grapping.  

1. Tie a knot around one stem to start off with.  Then tie two stems together and tightly wrap the string round both stems.
2. Add another garlic bulb and tightly wrap the string around the new stem and then the other two stems.
3. Repeat step two until it is difficult to add more garlic. All the garlic bulbs will be at the same level roughly.
4. Once you have enough garlic, tightly wrap the string around the stems in a spiral moving upwards to keep them all together.
5. Tie the string in a knot at the top. Ideally leave enough to make a loop with the string or ribbon so you can hang it up somewhere when you are finished.

You might notice from the picture that the hardneck garlic has round things at the top of the stems.  These are like mini bulbs of garlic.  Apparently if we had chopped them off when they had first formed we would have had much bigger cloves of garlic, but we can use them as mini bulbs of garlic anyway and now we know for next year.

Where to store plaited garlic?

Hang the garlic up in a cool (but not cold) dry place if possible. We usually just hang it in our kitchen but it depends on how warm and humid your kitchen gets as to whether that is a good idea.

Our first garlic harvest totalled 24 bulbs of garlic plus 10 garlic top bulbs from 3 original bulbs. I think garlic is a great thing to grow because it doesn’t take up much space, is inexpensive to buy and it would be fairly easy to grow a years supply in a small garden.

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