Rather than throwing your scraps in the bin or the compost, why not grow new vegetables?!
Here's your quick guide to growing root veg from scraps!
Here's your quick guide to growing root veg from scraps!
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Reducing food waste has never been more important but did you know you could be using your veg
00:11scraps to grow your own? Here's my quick and easy guide to growing your own root veg
00:16basics using nothing but leftovers. So first of all the humble potato. It's a staple
00:21of most UK dishes and it's really simple to grow your own. All you need to do is get
00:26some peelings. They need to be about 2 inches across and crucially they need to have eyes
00:30on them. All you need to do is let the peeling grow out and then plant it. So it needs about
00:364 inches of deep rich soil and you need to pop them in a sunny spot. So you pop them
00:42in with the eyes facing upwards. Make sure you've got the 4 inch depth otherwise they
00:46won't grow properly. And then about 10 weeks after planting you'll notice potato plants
00:51growing and that's when your potatoes are ready to harvest. Now sweet potatoes are
00:56a little bit more tricky to grow but it is possible so it's worth having a go. Basically
01:01you need to cut a sweet potato in half and it needs to be suspended in water like this
01:06to allow shoots to grow. Now my potato fits perfectly in this glass jar but say you had
01:12a wider container. If you insert toothpicks round the side it will suspend the potato
01:17in the water and allow those shoots to grow. So once they start sprouting out the top all
01:22you do is twist the leaves off and it's very similar to lettuce which we talked about growing
01:27last time. So you pop the leaves into some water and they will begin to sprout and grow
01:32roots. Once those roots start to grow they're ready to pop outside in soil. Now sweet potatoes
01:38love sandy soil, they love really sunny conditions and they're not very social, a bit like us
01:42at the moment, so make sure you space them out well. Finally onions. Literally you cannot
01:47go wrong growing these, they're really easy to grow inside or outside. All you need to
01:51do is cut off the root, that's the bottom bit in case you were wondering, leaving about
01:55half an inch of onion with it. Then you simply place it in some soil this way down, so root
02:02down into the soil and it will start to grow new roots. Once that happens this bit will
02:06actually die off so you can remove the onion, leave those roots and then it will take a
02:11couple of months and your onions will be underground ready to harvest. So if you manage
02:17to grow your veg from scratch with scraps then share your pictures with us on Instagram
02:21using the hashtag SoRealHomes.