Unorthodox Plantings

For those of you who have trouble finding seeds but also want to start growing plants, there are a few other immediate alternatives you can try. That is, working with foods that are already eager to sprout. 

The classics that come to mind first are garlic and onions. These plants are actually from the same family, and if you keep enough of the base of an onion or a clove of garlic you have everything you need to start. In fact onions, green onions in particular, are generally very ready to start growing. If you keep the bottom few centimeters intact and place them in a small container such as a shot glass half filled with water, they will start growing roots and growing back up again immediately. 

If you are following along with our Seeds of Change Unit then be sure that you provide a little bit of soil for them as well, but if you’d like you can start with the garlic by letting the base of the clove soak for a day or two, at which point it should start to grow rootlets as you can see in the picture: 

Then you can go ahead and plant the clove in a starter, or directly into a larger pot if you would like. The onion similarly will not complain about being planted out into soil and will continue to grow greens that you can trim and add to your dishes. 

If you would like to try something a little more extreme you can plant a tropical bromeliad that you can buy at the grocery store, start a pineapple plant! Once they get going they grow slowly and provide beautiful tropical foliage, but to start, cut off the leafy top about 2 centimeters from the top of the fruit. Ideally you can remove some of the lower leaves and search the base of the stem for root buds. It is important to let the top dry somewhere for a few days so that the cut portion of the fruit has time to heal and discourage rot. Then you can simply plant the top in soil covering it to the lowest remaining leaves. The pineapple will take some time to put out roots but should be quite happy as long as it gets plenty of light. 

Remember that outside the tropics it may require extra light sources during the winter, but otherwise it should provide an interesting growing experience. Especially since it would have been thrown away after you had eaten the pineapple. 

Another simple starter is the avocado. It does grow from a seed but that seed is rather large, it is however very simple to start. If you have 3 toothpicks and a glass of water you can grow an avocado. Start by pushing the toothpicks into the sides of the seed at equal distance with the point of the seed pointing up. Then simply balance the toothpicks on the rim of the glass so that part of the seed dips underwater. Soon the seed should start to split and send down roots, after this it will begin sending up leaves, and if you’d like you can plant it out into a larger pot. 

I hope you all take the time to take pictures of your starter plants and as you have questions, have a look online, there are lots of helpful resources for each of these wonderful plants!