your notes:
regrow your vegetables
Lots of recipes use scallions—tacos, stir-fries, lettuce wraps, and more. But don’t throw away your scallion scraps. Instead, use them to grow more scallions in just a week!
hey curious cook—
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Prepare Ingredients
Gather Equipment
Use chef’s knife to cut off scallion greens, leaving roots, white bulb, and 2 to 3 inches light green part intact. Save scallion greens for another use, such as Sizzling Beef Lettuce Wraps.
Add about 2 inches water to drinking glass. Place scallion bulbs in water, root end down (top of light green part should be sticking out of water). Put glass in sunny location.
Food for Thought
How Does Your Scallion Garden Grow?
Scallions (sometimes called green onions) are part of a group of vegetables called alliums (“al-ee-ums”). They’re related to garlic, onions, chives, and leeks. The white part of the scallion grows underground and stores nutrients for the rest of the plant—the light and dark green parts—that grow above ground.
The scallion roots absorb water. That water, plus energy from the sun and nutrients stored in the scallion white, helps grow a new scallion green—fast! The greens can grow as much as 1 inch per day! A scallion white contains enough nutrients to regrow scallion greens two more times before the plant runs out of fuel. Just think, you’re getting three scallions for the price of one!
The dark greens at the top are new growth, the whites store nutrients, and the roots absorb water!
Regrowing Garlic
If you have leftover garlic cloves, don’t throw them away! Instead, use them to grow garlic greens. Garlic greens taste similar to chives and scallions. You can use them the same way, such as in our Sizzling Beef Lettuce Wraps. Here’s how to do it:
- Add ½ inch water to small glass or shallow container.
- Place leftover unpeeled garlic in water with root end (the flat part) facing down.
- Replace water daily.
- When garlic greens are around 5 to 7 inches tall (after about 1 week), use chef’s knife to remove greens.
Garlic greens growth after 7 days.
