How to grow your garden from the supermarket

Eight plants that will ACTUALLY grow from supermarket scraps

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Notes:

• Today’s full newsletter is only available to paid subscribers. It is a guide to my favourite plants that you can actually, truly, successfully grow from stuff you buy at the supermarket!

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I’ve decided that our society has an unnatural obsession with fads, tricks and hacks.

And I’ll readily admit that I’m guilty of falling for it myself. A trick for this, a hack for that, the implication always being that life really CAN be easier than you think, that you can lose all the weight in one week by eating only carrots, you can get promoted simply by incorporating this five minute routine into your mornings and you can be happier, healthier and more successful just by doing one quick, simple thing you’ve somehow neglected to do throughout the entirety of your life until now.

These hacks are, generally, bollocks, and when it comes to the garden I see them everywhere. But perhaps none are as prevalent as those that fall into the ‘you really can grow a garden from these vegetable scraps’ category.

The problem is, sometimes you actually can grow a garden from vegetable scraps. Which leads to a whole minefield of frustrations and confusions. How are you supposed to know WHICH scraps are worth your time, hopes and energy, and which are just another piece of internet clickbait detritus set out to destroy your garden dreams.

That is what this newsletter is about. Because there is absolutely no point wasting your time trying to grow a lemon tree out of a pip you bought from the shops (you’ll likely end up with a wild, thorny monster that takes a decade to get big enough to produce fruit that is - I’m sorry - thick-rinded and tasteless), but there actually are a few supermarket staples that are absolutely worth throwing into your garden, if you’re so inclined. What’s more, it can actually be a great hack (hack! there, I said it), for getting your hands on some more unusual plant varieties that may not be easy to find in nurseries.

How to grow a garden from the supermarket

First up, ‘supermarket’ is probably a misnomer. If you want to try your hand at turning supermarket veggies into garden plants, you’re much better off going to a swanky organic supermarket or a famers’ market. This will ensure that the veggies you’re growing aren’t grown from tubers that have been sprayed, or from seeds that are weird, infertile hybrids. Look for locally grown veggies too, as these are less likely to have been chemically treated when going through quarantine.

Sweet potato

Leave a shop-bought sweet potato in a dark, dry place and after a couple of months it will sprout long, lanky tendrils that wind their way through your pantry like some alien beast. At this point, bury the potato itself, leaving the tendrils out of the soil (a large pot works well, otherwise this triffid-like plant will slowly crawl through your entire garden). Let it keep growing in the large pot (you can harvest the leaves to throw into stir fries) and after 6-12 months start digging around in the soil to see if any new sweet potatoes have formed. Sweet potatoes are the EASIEST things to grow and are a fantastic perennial vegetable to add to your patch.