Regrowing Romaine lettuce from food market store fight is a fun and easy project . It ’s a great means to learn kids about how plants grow and offer extra green for run through . It does n’t take a portion of specific knowledge and can be done with some common home supplying .
How to Save Scraps
Fortunately , it ’s often the part of the veggie that we do n’t wish to rust that is require to regrow a plant . In the case of Romaine , this is the white stem substructure that holds all the leaves together . Typically when chopping a head of bread , this is what you have left over at the last . If you would like to save multiple stems , you’re able to stack away them in a formative traveling bag with a spray of water .
Planting the Stem
supply :
Place your stem right side up into a cup of tea of shallow water system . The top of the bow is where the leafage develop out of , and the bottom is the reddish brown base of the stem turn where it was antecedently veer in the field of operations .
The water should be enough to cover the bottom of the bow but take into account the top to pose out . you could use three toothpicks pierce into the stem to hold it halfway into the jounce or dish , but this is n’t necessary . It ’s alright if the bow touches the bottom of the dish . A canning jar with a mob but no eyelid is handy . The stem has a raw cylinder shape to it , so it will sit absolutely in a canning jar with a ring attached .
Growing
Change out the urine every three days to keep in fresh and oxygenated . Soon you will see your Romaine scrap starting to sprout unexampled leafage . It may also sprout newfangled short roots from the bottom into the water . Whileregrown Romainescraps will never again produce a gracious head of lettuce , they will sprout enough greens for an extra repast .
After a week or two , the plant will get punctuate and send out a blossoming shoot . The leaves at this point will begin to get elusive , bitter , and unpalatable . pot the plant prior to it flowering can serve it last longer if it ’s grown enough of a root organization .
Seeding
The harvest is n’t over once the plant bug out to bloom . Not only does watching it go through the natural wheel of flowering and seeding tote up to the educational value of this project , but it actually produces more lettuce .
The plant will bloom , and the bloom will pollenate themselves . When the flowers wilt , the plant will produce seminal fluid . Save this seed for next class ’s garden , and you ’ve just turned a kitchen scrap into next years lettuce .
If salvage seed from kitchen fighting , buy your lettuce at the farmers market to avoid getting hybrid varieties . Only open pollinated and heirloom varieties will produce lawful - to - type seedlings the next twelvemonth .
