Re-Growing

 If you look around on social media you will find many enthusiastic presenters showing the endless things you can regrow from the base or root of bought vegetables. Whilst amusing to encourage children or newcomers to gardening there is little return in most. 

The first good one is spring onions, when you use them leave about 1cm of the root base, pop in some moist compost and leave them on the windowsill. You can plant quite a few in a small pot. They grow quickly and you can get away with about 2 cut’s before they are exhausted. 

Now the main event, Celery is an absolute necessity if you like to cook. In Italy, it is part of the kitchen's holy trinity, carrots, onions and celery. These are the fundamental ingredients to all good stews casseroles and sauces. Growing celery from seed takes a long time and is not always very consistent. Next time you buy celery, cut stems off as you need from about 2-3cm above the base. Once all used, take the base and pop it in a cup with about 5mm water and leave it on the windowsill. Change the water or top-up every couple of days. Within a week you should see some nice growth from the centre. Around three weeks you should have young celery around 30cm tall and ready to plant out. It is so successful I have seven planted out on my allotment and another growing at home.