The Lazy Gardener

While I absolutely love a lush, well tended garden I'll be the first to admit that I am one lazy gardener. I don't mind digging and hauling and bending and lifting in moderation but if it's too much work I am likely to wander off and find something that requires less energy like, say, sitting in my hammock with a cool drink. I start off every spring with the best of intentions and a flurry of horticultural activity which I am rarely able to sustain throughout our growing season. When my inherent laziness is combined with a tiny yard and very little space for growing I tend to choose my plants carefully and I do a lot of container gardening so I can haul my pots around as needed to provide them with the best growing conditions. I don't plant much from seed because I am impatient and I try stick with edibles I know we'll enjoy.


I recently learned about growing scallions not from seed but from old scallions and this seemed like a plan I could get behind. I have grown scallions from seed in the past and found this to be a painfully slow endeavor with a very poor yield. On the other hand, I get sick of buying scallions by the bunch only to have the majority of them go slimy my refrigerator. I predict an end to slimy scallions now that I've learned this little trick. You can cut the greens off your scallions and use them however you like but if you save the bulbs at the end and poke them into some soil they start to regrow almost immediately which is about as close to magic as it gets in a garden.

The shoots you see below started showing themselves within 3 days of planting and had been in the dirt for about 10 days when I snapped the photo.

Any day now I'll be able to start snipping greens off my recycled scallions but I'll leave the bulbs in the dirt where, rumor has it, they will continue to send up new shoots. How great is that? I hear you can do the same thing with celery so that will be my next recycled vegetable project. Meanwhile here are some more lazy gardener tips which I hope you'll enjoy.