How to Start a Kitchen Garden from Your Food Leftovers

Gardening is a fun activity for persons of all ages.

And…

Kitchen gardening focuses on growing fresh, organic vegetables. It’s a popular practice that has been adopted over decades among American families. It has also gained popularity worldwide.  

Apart from providing you with fresh vegetables, kitchen gardening makes cities greener. Moreover, you get to breathe fresh air, directly from plants growing right inside or next to your house.

Many more homes have increasingly adopted kitchen gardening over the years. It’s an activity that also brings a sense of peace and wellbeing to individuals, especially seniors.

According to the National Gardening Association, almost 35% of households in the United States of America have gardens. This indicates the growing trend of gardening in backyards, balconies or even indoors, especially in the kitchen.

With such gardens, American families grow food, either at home or in community gardens. There has been an increase in the number of people who practice gardening by around 200% since 2008. According to the survey, every 1 in 3 households in America engage in gardening.

If you’re a beginner and wondering how to start your own garden, either indoors or outdoors, you’re in the right place. You can use your kitchen scraps to grow a bountiful garden where you can obtain fresh food ingredients to prepare your meals.

Here’re ways to start a kitchen garden from your food leftovers:

  • Create DIY wooden garden boxes using power tools
  • Plant in pots
  • Use hanging planters for your vegetable
  • Grow your vegetable scraps and seedlings on a planting table
  1. Create DIY wooden garden boxes using power tools

Using garden boxes is one of the best ways to maximize space when growing your vegetables at home. You can build a garden box on your own if you have the right materials, including wood and proper power tools.

Some of the power tools you’ll need include:

  • A power drill
  • Timber drill bits
  • Shovel
  • Saw
  • Heavy-duty staple gun
  • Carpet tacks or staples
  • Hammer and nails
  • A spanner
  • Safety gear.

You may also need angle grinders; it improves your line of work when working on corners. Alternatively, opt for a bench grinder; it will help when not working on corners. After making the garden box, fill it to the rim with soil and apply appropriate fertilizers as recommended.

Get your seedlings and plant them. If you have food leftovers that can be regrown, go ahead and plant them. This way, you’ll have reduced food wastages. You’ll also save money because you don’t have to buy seedlings.

First, you’ll have to start your vegetable kitchen leftovers before you can plant them. Place them in a clean container with clean water and leave them until you see buds sprouting. Once they begin budding, you can transplant them to your gardening box.

When creating the garden box, make sure you raise it to conserve moisture. It’s also a great way to suppress the growth of weeds in your garden.

You can keep your garden box on the balcony, windowsill, or on the small garden in your backyard. The space you have available in your backyard or indoors will determine the right size of garden box to create.

  1. Plant in pots

You don’t have to spend a fortune to plant your vegetable garden. You can use empty containers that are no longer in use to plant your vegetable.

You can also buy cost-effective pots and colorfully arrange them in some space at the back or in front of your house. You can then plant vegetables on these pots filled with fertile soils. This technique of growing veggies is weed-free.

  1. Use hanging planters for your vegetable

You can use hanging planters to grow your vegetable, saving your available space. This tip is handy if you don’t have much space on the ground to hold your containers, pots or garden box.

You can plant different vegetables in separate planters and hang them from a strong frame where they can last for long.

You’ll start your vegetable kitchen leftovers for planting. This saves you on costs and puts your kitchen waste into good use. Depending on your budget and preference, you can build your planters using wood, metal, or plastic.

  1. Grow your vegetable leftovers and seedlings on a planting table

Although planting tables are more expensive, they’re an efficient way of growing your vegetables, where there’s limited space. Depending on available space, you can buy your planting table from a variety of available sizes.

What’s good is that planting tables are portable. You can move the table and reposition it around your home as you deem fit. You can also move with it when changing houses in the same neighborhood or even to another location.

You can also grow your vegetables on accessible roofs, using wall or balcony planters, investing in grow bags, or even hanging baskets.

4 Popular Vegetables to Grow in Your kitchen Garden

You don’t need to buy seedlings to start a kitchen garden, as mentioned earlier. You can use food leftovers for your kitchen garden. The following are the vegetables that you can regrow in your kitchen garden from food leftovers:

  • Garlic
  • Bulb onions
  • Green onions
  • Leafy greens
  • Beans
  • Carrots
  • Potatoes
  • Celery
  • Green onions

Green onions are simple and easy to regrow. Cut about one inch of an onion from the root, plant them, and water them regularly.

Conclusion

The kitchen is one of the places in your house with lots of waste. With innovation and creativity, the earth can be saved from such wastes through reuse and repurposing them. Don’t throw food leftovers that you can easily regrow into a beautiful garden.