Growing vegetables from veggie scraps allows children to learn about of how food grows as well as raises their awareness of how to reduce food waste. 

The below examples are for growing vegetables from romaine lettuce ends, fresh red pepper seeds, and celery stalk ends. PLASP staff have also had good luck growing onions, garlic, carrots and potatoes from leftovers. If you have different vegetable scraps around your home, try a similar process to see if you can get them to grow!

Growing lettuce 

What you will need:

• One or more of the following: Romaine lettuce or celery stalk ends, and/or fresh red pepper seeds
• Shallow plastic cups 

• Planter box or pots
• Soil
• Water 

Process:

Romaine lettuce:

• Cut a sliver off the end of the stalk and place in a plastic cup.

• Pour water into the cup and keep it somewhere that gets a good amount of sunlight.
• Mist the leaves with water a couple of times each week. 
• Change the water every second day.
• After 3 or 4 days, you will notice roots beginning to appear along with new leaves. When this happens you can transplant your lettuce into soil. 

Celery stalks:

• Good news! – Celery is one of the easiest food to grow from leftover scraps.

• Cut off the base of the celery. 
• Lay it in a bowl with just a bit of warm water in the bottom.  

• Keep the bowl in direct sunlight for about a week.
• You will begin to see the leaves thickening and growing along the base. When this happens, you can transplant your celery in soil and wait for it to grow to full length. 

Red peppers:

• Take the seeds out of the pepper.
• Plant them in potting soil and keep in direct sunlight. (You can also opt to plant them outdoors in a pot or your garden now that it’s warmer out).

• Peppers grow relatively fast and don’t require a lot of care.  
• Once you get a new crop, save some of the seeds for replanting again!

Tip: Your child can also keep track and record the growth of your vegetables, using a ruler, have your child document on a chart: