Gardening: 2 Quick and Easy Indoor Tricks

With this crazy cold weather, gardening seems the least likely subject to tackle! So this week I'm going to teach you 2 super-easy & cool indoor tricks I have learned:

1. You can grow your own green onions in a cup of water on your kitchen windowsill, always ready to use! 

As you use green onions from the bunch you bought at the grocery store, cut them where the green turns white at the bottom and put that whole white bottom in a cup or bowl with just enough water to cover the roots. In a day or two the roots will get longer and within a few more days you will have green onions tall enough to start using! 

The longer you wait, the taller the green onions will grow, giving you even more to cook with. Cut what you need right from what you've grown, leaving the bottom in the water and they'll keep on growing again! Just remember to check the water level every few days, and add more as needed.

2. There are several different plants that act as air purifiers in your home. I have always filled my home with such plants, and buy even more when I decide to paint (since paint has toxins). The philodendron (pictured above) is one, and it is beautiful and easy to care for. It requires medium light and moist soil. The really great thing about the philodendron is that once you purchase one plant, you can grow several more with it for free! 

See how there is some of the plant hanging down? This is how the plant grows, so you'll end up with lots of these, like a spider plant. You can cut a piece of one off and put it in a little vase of water. It sill stay bright green, healthy and alive, and eventually grow roots. You can then plant it and grow a whole new plant! 

I just made a new cutting with my philodendron. It took a month to start new roots, but maybe that it because it is winter. Maybe it would grow faster with warmer air and more sunshine? At any rate, I actually love the way the bright green little plant looks in the small vase! Check it out:

Update on my spring gardening: As you can see in the top photo, I have several new little plants that sprouted up from seeds and one got so big that I had to transplant it already (I put it into a Cracker Barrel kids' cup that I poked holes into the bottom of.) 

There are also lots of seeds that didn't sprout, probably because I used old seeds. I will go and buy more seeds and "greenhouses" this week and start those (see the first post about the "greenhouses"). I wanted to keep planting new seeds each week anyway, so that the harvest would be staggered. 

Right now I am growing peas, radishes, spinach, lettuce, bell peppers, corn, and tomatoes, as well as cilantro and peppermint for the kitchen windowsill. I grow the peppermint to put in my iced tea - it is soooo delicious! It tastes like a peppermint snowball, if you know what a snowball is:

Stay warm everyone!