In Part 2 of our series, Chef Freddy will go over reusing and planting your market-bought scallions, rosemary, and sage:
Scallions
- Wait! Stop before you toss out the bottom piece of your scallions and try this!
- Cut 1 ½ inch from the bottom of the scallion and place ½ inch of water in a pot. Cut and place the scallion bottoms in the pot, so they all stand upright in the water.
- Change the water every three to four days after enough roots have grown in a week.
- Pick the ones you think look the strongest and happiest and place them half way in vegetable potting soil in a 2-quart pot (4 -5 pieces per pot).
- Eventually, when it looks like the same scallion bunch you bought at the store you can harvest the scallions by cutting the scallion leaves off one at a time a couple from each plant. This way your, plant keeps growing and you will have a steady supply of scallion leafs.
Rosemary & Sage
- Next time you buy a bundle of Sage or Rosemary from your local grocery store or organic market and you have picked off all the leaves (with out damaging the stem itself), sort through the stems looking for the thickest and darkest stems.
- Separate them from the rest and snip off the very bottom (the size of about a nickel piece thick).
- You will need seed starting soil or make a combination of peat moss and vermiculite mix 50/50 of each in 2-quart pots .
- I recommend you use a rooting hormone powder or liquid, although it is not necessary.
- Take the stems you are going to grow, cut off the very soft part off the end of the plant, and what you should be left with is a bundle of stems between 4 to 6 inches.
- Fill your pots with soil and water and thoroughly let drain. At this stage, add the rooting hormone and follow its directions.
- In each pot, place a stem 1 ½ to 2 inches deep, spacing them at least 1 inch apart (4 to 5 stems per pot).
- For about 2 weeks, keep in a well-shaded area, like under an oak tree or in a corner of a solid fence where it only gets partial sun through the day. Keep soil slightly damp at all times and NEVER let it dry out.
- When you find that a few weeks have passed and your new plants have grown new leaves, you can move it out into more sun slowly.
- Please Note: Sage has more delicate leaves, but the very small leaves that you did not use can be left on, which helps the plant photosynthesize, giving it more energy to grow roots.
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