It’s spring time! Do you wish you could grow some vegetables – but can’t visit the nursery due to lockdown?

That’s why I created this list of 6 vegetables from your kitchen you can sprout and grow

These plants are all ideally planted in spring – i.e. right now.

1. Sweet potato

A small sweet potato sits perfect in a used garlic jar. Notice that one white root that’s just starting to grow. A few days later, it is 10 cm long!

Plop a sweet potato into a glass jar filled with water on your windowsill and watch miracles happen. First the roots grow, followed by the stems. The leaves are pretty and heart-shaped and make a decorative houseplants. The cuttings can be planted in the ground and will soon grown roots and flourish. Read the full guide here: https://bloomahs.com/grow-sweet-potato/

Time to Harvest: 6 months

2. Potato

Look for those potatoes at the bottom of your vegie draw that are growing little eyes (and hands and feet). Bury them beneath a thin layer of soil at the bottom of a sack or old bin (with drainage holes). As the stems grow, cover them with more soil. Harvest a few weeks after the plants die back.

Time to Harvest: 4 months

I snapped this pic of my potato sack today. They look almost dead – which means harvest time is close. I planted these in an old sack in October and plan to harvest right before Pesach.

3. Tomato

This must be a stock photo because nothing on Bloomah’s Tiny Farm is this perfect looking!
My tiny tomato seedlings are not impressive enough to post right now.

Few vegetables are as rewarding to grow as tomatoes! Save a few seeds from a tomato (or cherry tomato) and put them in a large pot filled with good soil. After they sprout, keep only the strongest plant and nip off the others. Tomatoes grow tall and unwieldy so use sticks to give them support.

Time to Harvest: 4 months

4. Butternut squash

This butternut squash grew out of seed from my fridge.
Try it yourself if you don’t believe me!

This a wonderful plant but requires a ton of space – the vines can easy snake along the ground for 10 feet. Take a few seeds out of your butternut squash, sprout in soil in a cottage cheese container (with drainage holes) on your window sill. After a few weeks, plant the strongest specimen in large pot or mound of earth rich with compost.

Time to harvest: 6 months. wait until the plant dies from the cold.

5. Horseradish

Freshly harvested horseradish root. Careful: they’re hot!

When you get your horseradish before Seder night, cut off one piece of at least 2 inches long. Fill up a large pot with soil and plant the root, covering it with a few centimeters of soil. Water well every day. Within 2 weeks, you should be seeing the fleshy leaves of increasing size. This plant grows fast! Erev Pesach 2021: harvest your own organic marror!

Read the full guide here: https://bloomahs.com/how-to-grow-horseradish/

Time to harvest: 4 months and onwards. This is long-living plant.

6. Sunflowers

This is a sunflower only five weeks after I planted the seed!

This one is going to win the most points for beauty! Take a raw (unroasted, unsalted) sunflower seed (sold in the nut store or pilfered from your pet budgie’s feed tray) and plant it in a pot. Water well and watch in wonder as it grows and forms an enormous yellow sunflower. After the flower withers, it will form dozens of seeds for you to eat (or share with your pet budgie)

Time to harvest: 3 months

How to Grow Thriving Vegetables

One thing to bear in mind: ALL vegetables need full sun to thrive and produce a decent harvest. This is a challenge in an apartment that only gets limited light. So make sure you choose the sunniest possible position.

Vegetable plants also need careful watering throughout the hot Israeli summer.

Got any questions? Just ask!

One Response

  1. Thank you for this. I love the sunshine in your photos, and I love to hear about your outdoor life. But more than anything, I thank you for your writing, it’s a delight to read.

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