Growing up my dad had a pretty large garden; probably half an acre full of all sorts of fruits and vegetables. We had a big family with 8 kids and that was one thing we did together as a family was take care of the big garden together. I sure hated doing it all summer, waking up and having to weed the garden every day, but by the time all that produce was harvested, I appreciated it even more and loved all that fresh, delicious food. Now that everyone is out of the house, I can’t believe my parents still keep up that huge garden with only the two of them to take care of it, but they do an awesome job. My mom cans a ton of it and they love to share it with neighbors and friends now that all of us are out of the house and not eating it all.

I have always wanted to have a garden of my own but have mostly lived in apartments or places without enough land to have a little garden. Recently, I’ve been looking into different ways to have kind of an urban small garden. One thing I kept coming back to was propagating your own produce using kitchen scraps that you would normally throw away.

It is so easy too! Most of them you just put in a glass of water and change out the water every couple of days and before you know it your plant is growing and you can plant it in a pot and have your own harvest in usually just a few months. It is recommended that you use organic fruits and vegetables for the best results.

I’m going to post a good infographic at the end that will give instructions for a few different veggies or fruits to grow from scraps. Here are a couple of cool examples of what you can do:

Green Onions

These green onions just pretty much grow in a cup of water and you can keep growing them over and over again. They also seem to be the quickest ones that you can actually use in just a couple months.

Pineapple

This was one of the coolest ones I saw! You basically rip the crown out of the pineapple, place the crown in water for a few days until it grows new roots, then you plant it in a pot. In about a year you can replant it to a bigger pot and in two year’s time you will have a ripe little pineapple ready to eat and then you can start the process again. That sounds like a long time but it is a really nice looking plant so really it’s kind of like having a free potted plant that you’ll get a cute pineapple out of.

Avocado

Have you ever tried doing this before? Which fruits or vegetables did you try? Feel free to share your green thumb tips with any of the rest of us who attempt to do this :)