Growing food, porch style

[magid]

I've just read a couple of interesting blog posts about growing celery or scallions from cut-off ends. I'm not so interested in celery, but scallions are great (and since they're kind of like thicker cousins of chives, which are similar, this shouldn't be such a surprise, feeling like an opportunity, but it does). All that would take is a glass or a vase, which I've got.

I had some potatoes start to sprout, organic Yukon Gold ones from Trader Joe's, and I'm debating trying to grow them into more potatoes some months from now, despite at least one site's dire warnings that only official seed potatoes should be used. I've never tried growing them before, not having thought them worth my limited porch space, but right now the idea of using what I otherwise might not appeals.

And in that vein: I had a bag of popcorn kernels from the deep winter share that I put away during Pesach. I took it out again, and noticed the contents looked a bit odd: there were tiny rootlets in there. I hadn't realized there was any liquid in there, so it was definitely a surprise to see rootlets. I guess I'm not giving the bag to a popcorn-obsessed friend. A quick Google search implies that I could get them to sprout, but I definitely don't have room to grow them; is there anyone with more of a yard who'd like to grow popcorn this year?

I still plan to get some annuals, especially tomatoes and herbs, perhaps some hot peppers, nasturtiums, marigolds, maybe something else if a see something that catches my eye.

Comments

[ruthling]

I have never seen popcorn sprout!

I am interested to see how your explorations of growing from leftovers.

[magid]

I'm not sure I've seen the popcorn sprout, exactly, since it's rootlets rather than shoots (and due to just being in a plastic bag, moving it may have ripped them from their generating kernels). I'm debating wetting a paper towel to put in with them, on a shallow tray perhaps, though ideally I'd like to find someone who'd want to take them after sprouting before doing that.

As usual, I feel like if I could just get a really good set-up of containers on my porch, I could maximize space for lots of experimentation, but I haven't figured out what that set-up is yet.