Okay, I admit it. I recycle even plants. You know the little parts of the onions, where the roots were? All that that is usually thrown away? Not with me, oh no! I take a good look at that root part, and see if there's any chance that the roots can grow back. And if there is - I drown it.
It worked very well with cabbage, too, though the cabbage is growing higher and higher, and not really bigger. That happens to some of the onions, too, and I'm not sure why. Doesn't really matter to me, I just feel like a semi-god every time something I stick into the earth grows. It's an awesome feeling.
Of course, everything else is recycled, too. The dirt is usually compost, and I use old cans to nurse the roots. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and a lot of times stuff grows that I didn't plant at all. Out of 10 stubs, maybe 3 make it and grow bigger. Then I have to keep them alive long enough to transplant, and then they have to survive that.
It's a bad business.
Won't save any money with that. But from time to time, something like this grows:
Sorry for the focus of the camera, my cellphone is really not working well these days. Anyway, this one grew to a nice onion, and Lily and I love making "boullion" out of those - it's a very basic vegetable soup made of potatoes, onion, carrots, parsley and a little bit of olive oil. She got that from a children's book, where the little bear prepares it for the little tiger so because the latter is sick.
Anyway, the greens are really great, almost like chives. I use them for my guacamole (I don't like raw onion, but the greens are perfect), for creamy dips like cream cheese with herbs and even made a dip that I sell out of it that is like mayonnaise with chives and parsley. Delicious!
Those are skinny ones, they didn't build any more bulbs, but the greens are perfect. I collected a lot of seeds as well, though I have no idea if they will work - I haven't tried them yet.
There are other things that work out, too:
This is a cabbage that had a few roots, so I stuck the stump into the earth again. Worked, somehow - it's shooting high, not wide. I just let it grow and see what happens. It's not like I'm a professional gardener, just doing all this for fun and experimental curiosity.
Since one of my rocoto chili plants is giving up (it's the meager little stick with three leaves coming up from the Rucula), I wanted to sow some more. I had a lot of seeds from the last time, so I thought I could just throw them into a pot and see which plant wins the race. I was in for a surprise:
The potato won the race. Yes, a potato. I did not see that coming. I didn't even know there was a potato in the soil - it must've been very small. Second place goes to a plant that I have no idea what it is, though the leaves look a little like beans. Or granadilla. Anyway, none of the chili seeds came up.
Remember how happy I was about my dill being everywhere? Well, it even made the way into my stump-pots. You can see two onions in the "maybe they'll make it"-phase, and the dill just going beast mode next to them. It's okay, I'll take it. The more dill, the better.
That's it for today! It's not precisely my garden, but kind of a preparation for it. I'd love to have more gardening space, but with the restaurant it's limited. There is hope on the horizon, though - the space behind the bakery, where we're going to open a community cafeteria, has a wall that would be perfect to have around 3 rows of vertical gardens. And friends of us that sell organic veggies already said they're going to help us set it all up. That's really exciting. Going to be a lot of work, but that space is going to be incredible. You'll see, because I'll start posting as soon as we start building.
