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Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Frugal Tuesday - Restarting Celery? Does it work?

All over the web lately (especially Pinterest!)I've seen posts about restarting celery so I thought I would do a little experiment to find out if it really works and how long it would take to regrow. First off I used up all my celery. I have a habit of washing the whole thing and then chopping from the ends down so it was easy for me to save the root area all in one piece. Once it was used up, but had about 1.5 inches left on the bottom, I just stuck it in a glass and added some water. That was easy! Now the waiting begins. Surprisingly after a week little leaves had started to show. Nice! Don't know where my picture went for week one.... oh well! Onward we go!


In two weeks the leaves were much bigger!


Three weeks and going strong! I'm a little disappointed though as there aren't really very many shoots and I'm doubting this will work well. In-fact I was so disappointed I ignored it for the next two weeks thinking I had wasted my time. 


Week 5: O.K, maybe I shouldn't have ignored it for so long! The root system is huge now and it needs potting badly. The old stalk has started to rot but the strangest thing is what you can't see in this picture. A whole bunch of tiny little leaves starting to sprout again from the bottom! Nice! It looks like maybe this experiment wasn't a failure after all. I'm off to town for an appointment today but when I get back this little baby is going into a pot with some nice soil. I know it is a long process but I have time. Even if I don't get any celery to use until mid summer that's fine. At least I have proved it works. If I keep this up by spring time I should have three or four of these to plant in the garden. From now on celery ends do NOT go into the compost pile! Have a great day everyone!

Update: I have to say I was just a bit skeptical if it would really work but since I potted it two weeks ago it has really started to take off and I even snipped the tallest stalk today just because I wanted to taste it. I really couldn't seem to help myself and almost decided to snip a few more so that all the stalks were even but eventually controlled myself and left them alone.


How nice it is to have something growing! I can't wait to start planting my veggies!!! I actually have the dirt ready but once I went through my seeds I realized I was weeks early so they are just sitting there waiting for me. Sigh!

Thank you to Frugally Sustainable for their blog hop. 
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17 comments:

  1. loves2spin7 February 2012 at 11:06

    Wow! I never heard of this. What a GREAT idea! Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jessica7 February 2012 at 12:10

    In the winter we crave green growth, this is a neat idea1

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  3. Sandy Livesay7 February 2012 at 15:40

    Hey There Glo, I can see the world is treating you well today. Love the pictures of celery growing. I heard about this last week and started two celery ends. It's amazing isn't it? I plan on doing the same thing, potting the ends in a couple more weeks. Hopefully, we both will have us some full fledged celery in time!

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  4. Sandy Livesay7 February 2012 at 15:44

    Glo, It's me again. One of the blogs I read had a simple thing with sprouts in a small container in the house with no soil. If your into sprouts, it maybe of interest. I attached the blog below.
    http://foodstorageandsurvival.com/

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    Replies
    1. Glo @ Off The Grid at -307 February 2012 at 15:56

      Hi Sandy, Thank you! I will check it out. During the winter sprouts are so necessary!

      Delete
  5. Author7 February 2012 at 15:59

    I'm doing this, too. I'll post mine as soon as I get a chance. I am also regrowing green onions. So many neat ideas on Pinterest.

    Love your blog. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good Girl Gone Green7 February 2012 at 22:52

    Great idea. I am so glad it worked. I think i will have to try this~

    ReplyDelete
  7. momma-lana8 February 2012 at 08:20

    You can do this with the tops of pineapples too. You don't need to sprout it but just sit it on the surface of the soil and it will grow roots. My Mom has a whole bed of pineapples in her yard in Florida. Each plant will produce one pineapple and then you pull up the plant and put the top of the pineapple it grew where you pulled up the parent plant. Self perpetuating! You can also grow these in pots in less warm climates.

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  8. Sandy Livesay8 February 2012 at 14:24

    The question I have is can this also be done with lettuce bottoms? I'm also trying two romaine lettuce bottoms to see how the experiment goes :-)

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  9. dr momi8 February 2012 at 20:30

    I just started mine today!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Melinda Kunst8 February 2012 at 20:33

    Doing green onions, celery, and fancy lettuce! All are getting BIG! YIPPEE!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous10 February 2012 at 20:47

    Hi Glo! Thanks for sharing this on Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways! I just shared it on the wall of my fb and I will be pinning this:) Thank you for sharing you experience with us!

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    Replies
    1. Glo @ Off The Grid at -3010 February 2012 at 23:23

      :D Thanks Andrea! Wow! Now that's a boost to my site views! Love your blog!

      Delete
  12. Anonymous10 February 2012 at 20:49

    Going to start one tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous10 February 2012 at 21:43

    Would the new plant be pesticide free? Celery is supposed to be one of the plants that absorbs a lot of pesticides so I was curious as to whether any of that would still be present in the new roots/growth?

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    Replies
    1. Carol O10 February 2012 at 22:55

      If you buy an organic celery you would not have to worry about the pesticides. Maybe that would be helpful? I do not know what to tell you about the other kind.

      Delete

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