Waste not, want not. Free vegetable garden

I started my garden for the spring in my kitchen window since it's not warm enough for the plants outside yet. Even typing this makes me laugh because I live in Southern CA. But I am near the mountains and our ground has frozen this year. Who knew?

While I would love to say my garden looked  like the one to the left, alas I am not that good of a gardener. 

Last year's raised bed, ready for planting

Last summer I built a raised garden bed in my yard and harvested zucchini, blueberries, tomatoes, peppers, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. This year, I am toying with the idea of adding a second one to get more good stuff for free.

Not much has lasted through the winter since we have had some cold nights here this year. Well, that and the fact that I have totally neglected my garden during the holidays and winter months. 

This year my goal is to plant a "free" garden using seeds from the vegetables I purchase at the grocery and stems from other items. I will document my successes and failures and let you know how truly easy or hard it is to do. I have a busy life and am not one of those people to fawn over my garden every day. I automate as much care as possible and plan to do so again. 

Back to the plants....So far I have celery, onion, and cabbage in small pots of water to see if they will root. I am not sure it is possible to grow cabbage this way, but I will give it a shot and let you know. 

I cut off excess and stuck the end of the vegetable into a small bit of water. The picture on the right shows the bottom of the celery. It looks just like it did after I washed the stalk and cut off the portion I wanted to use.

I tried celery once before but didn't get it planted into the ground before it began to rot in the water. Needless to say, that plant was tossed.

Onion after 1 week

After one week, the onion is growing roots like mad but no green is sprouting. The celery is sprouting (look at the cute little celery stalk!) but has little to no root growth. 

Celery --growing green but no roots

Root buds on the cabbage

I can't tell if the cabbage is going to grow. There are some root buds on the bottom of the cabbage so I am hopeful the roots will keep sprouting. I think this next week will give me an answer as to whether growing cabbage from the stem is possible.

I am hoping to get these into the garden bed tomorrow. I haven't amended the soil yet this year and will need to clean last year's plants out of the raised bed. And with the Haraughbowl on tomorrow, I'll see what I can get done. 

In the next few weeks I will plant seeds from peppers, tomatoes, and an apple. I'll also see if I can grow carrots from an end piece.

Together we will see what grows, what doesn't and how easy it is for an amateur gardener to do.  
Keep coming back. I will post the successes, failures, and errors of my gardening adventures. 

Happy Planting!
Laureen