Frugal Gardening: Regrow Your Lettuce in a Glass of Water

Recently, my mother-in-law showed me a cool trick on frugal gardening by regrowing lettuce and celery indoors; I just had to try it out for myself. What you do is take a head of lettuce that you have purchased, enjoy that head of lettuce in salads and such but keep the stem. Place the stem in a glass of water and sit by a sunny window. I added a few toothpicks to center the stem in the glass of water.

I honestly don’t remember what type of lettuce I am growing now (pictured). It was some type of organic specialty lettuce. But, it is growing great so far.

According to the Old Farmers Almanac, this only works “with lettuces that form a round head or cone at maturity, not leaf lettuces.”

Make sure you change the water daily for best growth. You can use bottled or distilled water, but I found that tap water works just as well. The good thing is that you aren’t using pesticides and you know exactly where your food is coming from! That’s is worth it in itself.

I love this idea because it’s like getting two or three heads of lettuce for the price of one! Growing your own lettuce should take just about a week. Try this trick with Romaine or Bibb lettuce, as well.

Also, the kids love the project. I’m hoping this may inspire my 4-year-old to actually try lettuce in a sandwich at least!

You also can use this indoor gardening trick with green onions, chives and celery roots. Green onions will grow 100% in water and you can just cut the long green shoots for salads or garnishes but the celery grows a little differently. Make sure you change the water in the green onion glass daily, they can get pretty stinky, quick!

Place the celery root in a shallow bowl of water for five to seven days, according to 17 Apart, after about a week you will want to replant in a pot with soil. 17 Apart used an old can from steel cut oats to plant the celery and they had success for months. This will  definitely be my next project!

It doesn’t seem like much to save money on a few heads of lettuce or celery, neither cost very much, but think about it. If you buy just a head of lettuce and a bunch of celery a week, that’s probably about $5, so after a month you’ve saved $20 and over the course of a year you’ve saved $240! That’s amazing!

That does it for today’s Frugal Fabulous Find. Remember, the savings doesn’t stop here. You can continue the conversation on our Facebook page. Tell us all about your veggie growing experiments! Don’t forget to like us while you’re there.